Effect of an external field on nematic order in semiflexible polymers

Semiflexible polymers of sufficient stiffness exhibit liquid crystalline order at sufficient polymer concentrations. In this work, we investigate blends of flexible and semiflexible polymers under a uniform external field with the aid of Monte Carlo simulations of a bond-fluctuation model. The model is an extension of Shaffer's bond-fluctuation model, where chain stiffness is controlled by including different forms of bending penalties, and includes attractive interactions between monomers. From simulations for a range of values of the bending energy, density, and temperature, we determine the effect of an external field on liquid crystalline order and domain formation.