Electrorheological Effect of Gold Nanoparticles Coated with Fluorescent Mesogenic Groups Dispersed in Nematic Liquid Crystal

Anisotropic shift of surface plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles doped in nematic liquid crystal.

Study of the liquid crystal (LC) director around nanoparticles has been an important topic of research very recently, since it allows design and fabrication of next-generation LC devices that are impossible in the past. In our experiment, alkanethiol-capped gold nanoparticles (GNPs) were dispersed in nematic LC. Analysis of the LC director around GNPs was performed by investigating the behavior...

Threshold Flexoelectric Effect in Nematic Liquid Crystal

Doping the nematic liquid crystal 5CB with milled BaTiO3 nanoparticles.

The simple nematic mesogen 5CB was doped with milled BaTiO3 nanoparticles and was investigated with x-ray scattering. Doping with BaTiO3 nanoparticles of 9 nm in diameter led to the formation of crystallites. These crystallites precipitated and formed a waxlike nanodispersion of 5CB and nanoparticles, which led to intense x-ray scattering signals characteristic of a multilayer structure. Surpri...

Nematic Liquid-Crystal Colloids

This article provides a concise review of a new state of colloidal matter called nematic liquid-crystal colloids. These colloids are obtained by dispersing microparticles of different shapes in a nematic liquid crystal that acts as a solvent for the dispersed particles. The microparticles induce a local deformation of the liquid crystal, which then generates topological defects and long-range f...

Pretransitional Nematic Ordering in Liquid Crystals with Dispersed Polymer Networks

The birefringence induced by partially ordered polymer networks dispersed in an isotropic phase of liquid crystals is studied. Polymer networks were formed by the polymerization of 1–4 % mixtures of prepolymer in the nematic phase of liquid crystals. The partial nematic ͑paranematic͒ ordering is analyzed in terms of the Landau–de Gennes approach using a simple model of an array of thin fibrils, w...