Nanomaterials (Jan 2022)

Nanoparticle-Induced Property Changes in Nematic Liquid Crystals

  • Nicolas Brouckaert,
  • Nina Podoliak,
  • Tetiana Orlova,
  • Denitsa Bankova,
  • Angela F. De Fazio,
  • Antonios G. Kanaras,
  • Ondrej Hovorka,
  • Giampaolo D’Alessandro,
  • Malgosia Kaczmarek

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12030341
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 3
p. 341

Abstract

Read online

Doping liquid crystals with nanoparticles is a widely accepted method to enhance liquid crystal’s intrinsic properties. In this study, a quick and reliable method to characterise such colloidal suspensions using an optical multi-parameter analyser, a cross-polarised intensity measurement-based device, is presented. Suspensions characterised in this work are either plasmonic (azo-thiol gold AzoGNPs) or ferroelectric Sn2P2S6 (SPS) nanoparticles in nematic liquid crystals. The elastic constants and rotational viscosity showed nonlinear dependence on the concentration of AzoGNPs, initially increasing at lower concentrations and then decreasing at higher concentrations, indicating some degree of particle aggregation. For the SPS suspension, the elastic constant decreased with doping, while the rotational viscosity increased, in agreement with previous findings. Through viscosity measurements, the stability of SPS suspension over ten years is also highlighted.

Keywords