Biaxial planar nematic layered structures of highly confined prolate hard ellipsoids

This study investigated the nematic phase structures of hard uniaxial ellipsoidal rods having a short axis of 2b, a long axis of 2a, and the elongations k=2a2b=3 and 5 in strongly confined pores via the density functional theory with Zwanzig and hyper-netted-chain approximations. By increasing the density, the number of planar nematic layers gradually rise without any phase transition. These layering phenomena occurred between two biaxial structures with different numbers of planar layers in which the layers’ spacing was approximately 2b.