Liquid Crystals and Interfaces: Insight from Computer Simulations
Professor Dr. Michael P. Allen (Department of Physics and Centre for Scientific Computing, University of Warwick, UK)

An increasingly exciting branch of physics deals with the combination of different kinds of "soft matter" - for example, polymers, colloids, and liquid crystals - to give new nanostructured materials. The properties of such materials reflect a complex interplay of interactions comparable in scale to the thermal energy kT: our experience and instincts may not always be relied on to predict these properties. Computer simulation has a role to play in relating the behaviour that gives rise to nanoscale structures, to the properties of the constituent molecules. Sometimes, the simulation of simplified molecular models helps to validate theoretical approaches, which may then be applied with confidence to more realistic models. This talk will focus on some examples from the physics of inhomogeneous liquid crystals, where interfacial effects have a large influence on the orientational ordering of the molecules.