Abstract
A general theory of the dielectric constant of nematic liquid crystal mixtures is presented including the particular case of nematics doped with polar nanoparticles. The results are used to estimate the contribution of chains of polar nanoparticles to the static dielectric anisotropy and birefringence of the nematic composite taking into account contributions from chains of different lengths. The dependence of the dielectric anisotropy on the dipolar interaction strength is considered in detail and it is shown that formation of polar chains of nanoparticles enables one to explain a significant increase of the dielectric constant of the composite as observed experimentally.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 032501 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Physical Review E |
| Volume | 92 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Sep 2015 |
Keywords
- anisotropy
- chains
- liquid crystals
- nematic liquid crystals
- dielectric anisotropies
- dipolar interaction
- general theory
- nanoparticle chains
- nematic liquid crystal mixtures
- nematics
- polar chain
