Studies of Nano-Particle Doped Liquid Crystal Mixtures

Abstract

Liquid crystals (LCs) are rod-shaped molecules which can diffuse freely like liquid and orient themselves under the influence of electric field with the long axis of molecules pointing in the same direction. Carbon nanotubes and bucky balls are ideal LC dopants because of their strength, conductivity, flexibility and novel electrical characteristics. LCs doped with C60 show enhancement of the director axis reorientation and enhancement of its nonlinear optical properties. Refractivity of LCs can also be altered by doping nanoparticles and/or nanotubes. In this paper, the effect of the presence of nanoparticles/nao-tubes on the phase transition temperatures of the LCs and the classification of the mesophases so formed are investigated by us with the help of the textures studied under the polarizing micro-scope. The phase transition temperatures as well as the heats of transition of the doped LCs using various techniques are also presented.