Effect of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on dielectric behavior of Nematic Liquid Crystal Amit Sharma1, 2, Pankaj Kumar3, Praveen Malik1, a) 1
Liquid Crystal Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar (Punjab) India-144011 2 Arni School of Technology, Arni University, Indora (HP), India-176401 3 Chitkara University Research and Innovation Network & Department of Applied Sciences, Chitkara University, Jhansla, Rajpura, Patiala- 140401, Punjab, India a)
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Abstract. In this work, phase transition and dielectric behavior of nematic liquid crystal (NLC), E7 and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) doped nematic liquid crystals are investigated. Effect of nano-particles dispersion is analyzed and compared with the dielectric behavior of E7 and E7-ZnO. Frequency dependent dielectric permittivity at various temperatures in nematic phase for E7 and E7-ZnO sample is also studied.
INTRODUCTION Substantial research on liquid crystals (LCs) is continued from last several decades and LCs numerous applications from display technology to electro-optic filters, holography, digital data storage and biosensors [1-3]. Various types of LCs have been investigated and found exceptionally useful for technologically. Among all, nematic LCs are preferred due to better outcomes [4]. In spite of that, further refinement of materials and processes is still in demand for applied research at large scale. LCs and nanoparticles (NPs) composites based on metals, metal oxide NPs etc. have been prepared and utilized to modify as well as further improvement of LC devices [1-9]. ZnO NPs are preferred over other NPs its unique properties and applications. Out of different typical NPs, ZnO NPs induced LC composite shows better properties of nematic LCs [1, 9-10]. Consequently, in this paper effect of NPs doping on dielectric behavior of LC-NPs composite has been studied by preparing different sample cells for pure LC and LCNPs composite.
EXPERIMENTAL In this work nematic LC E7 (from Merck) with positive dielectric anisotropy (Δε =13.8), nematic to isotropic transition temperature (TN-I) 60.5oC, and ZnO NPs (from Sigma-Aldrich, particle size
