Fig. 5: Grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations of hard rods on surface with and without bias.

a, b The smectic order parameters for a collection of Monte Carlo simulations of hard rods with aspect ratio ℓ = 7 are presented in grids, where each box in the grid represents a single simulation defined by its chemical potential and rod mobility; the coloring indicates the value of the smectic order parameter. Separate grids are plotted for simulation collections where (a) all three rod orientations are equally favorable (“Unbiased”), and (b) where the horizontal rods are twice as energetically favorable as the other orientations (“2x Bias”). c–j Several select simulations are annotated with a snapshot of the final rod configuration; in the snapshots, rods of the same orientation share the same color. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.