Compression of a suspension of helical Yukawa rods

We present a Monte Carlo simulation study of the compression of helical Yukawa rods under isobaric conditions. The model is a chiral liquid crystal mesogen, which mimics, for instance, cellulose nanocrystals. It has several parameters (e.g. surface charge and internal pitch), which influence the compression route and the final structure. The strongest dependence of the structure of the condensed phase is found for the internal pitch of the charge helix: decreasing the internal pitch reduces the maximum density under otherwise equal conditions. [GRAPHICS] .