Ordering transitions in confined melts of semiflexible polymers: A Monte Carlo simulation

Using grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations of the bond-fluctuation model confined between two hard walls we study the effect of confinement on the isotropic-nematic transition of a melt of semi-flexible chains. The walls have a stiffening effect on the chains in their vicinity leading to an ordering transition at the walls preempting the one in the bulk (surface-induced ordering). For a semi-infinite system the thickness of the ordered nematic layer increases with a complete wetting transition upon approaching bulk coexistence. For a finite extension, D, between the walls, the ordered surfaces induce a shift of the first order isotropic-nematic transition in the bulk of the film (capillary nematization). When D becomes comparable to the extension of a chain, the first order isotropic-nematic transition line ends in a critical point.