Molecular organization and aggregation in Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett films of azo dye/liquid crystal mixtures

A study of azo dye/liquid crystal mixtures in monolayers formed at air-water (Langmuir films) and air-solid substrate (Langmuir-Blodgett films) interfaces was performed. Three azo dyes with various molecular structure and two liquid crystal materials: 4-octyl-4′-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) and trans-4-octyl(4′-cyanophenyl)-cyclohexane (8PCH) were used. The morphology of Langmuir films was monitored by means of a Brewster angle microscope (BAM). Moreover, a surface pressure and electronic absorption spectra of the monolayer spread on the water surface of dye/liquid crystal mixtures as a function of a mean molecular area were simultaneously recorded. In addition, the absorption for Langmuir-Blodgett films deposited on quartz plates was measured. Information about intermolecular interactions in the mixtures of the nonamphiphilic dye and the liquid crystal with polar terminal group was obtained. Conclusions about the formation of self-aggregates between dye molecules have been drawn. The influence of the dye molecular structure and its concentration on aggregates’ geometry was found.     

Sign inversion of dielectric anisotropy in nematic liquid crystal by dye doping

The present paper reports sign inversion in dielectric anisotropy of a nematic liquid crystal, i.e. 5CB, as an effect of doping dye (solvent green 3) in small amount. It is the result of strong variation of the parallel component of dielectric permittivity with temperature for a dye doped sample. This behavior is attributed to the interaction taking place between the nematic liquid crystal molecule and the dye molecule. This behavior of dielectric anisotropy has been explained on the basis of interaction between the dye (guest) and the liquid crystal molecules (host).     

SiO2 nanoparticles doped nematic liquid crystal system: An experimental investigation on optical and dielectric properties

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of silica (SiO₂) nanoparticles (NPs) on optical and dielectric properties of BBEA nematic liquid crystal (NLC). For optical analysis the photoluminescence (PL) and UV-absorbance experiments have been performed. The doped system is showing enhancement in the intensity of photoluminescence with varying concentration of nanoparticles. A red shift is observed in the emission spectra of NLC doped with silica nanoparticles. The PL emission peak of NLC is observed at 377.3 nm which is shifted to 379.7 nm in the presence of silica nanoparticles. We have also observed the enhancement in the value of UV absorption for silica doped systems in comparison to the pure system. Energy band gap of pure and doped systems has been calculated and it is found that the energy band gap is decreasing with concentration which is a promising result of this study. The dielectric parameters of the pure and doped NLC systems were carried out as a function of frequency and temperature. Different dielectric parameters such as relative permittivity, loss factor and dielectric conductivity have been measured. The pure and silica nanoparticles doped systems has shown decreased value of dielectric permittivity and loss factor at lower frequency region and at higher frequency regions these values became constant. The value of relative permittivity also decreases with concentration. The increased value of a.c. conductivity for doped systems can be utilized in device designing. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the birefringence (Δn) was determined from the transmitted intensity of light for pure and doped systems and the improvement in its value for both composites has been observed. Improved value of birefringence has pronounced applications in optical devices.     

Temperature characteristic of permittivity and splay elastic constant for fluorinated liquid crystal mixtures

This paper describes an experimental investigation for physical properties of fluorinated phenyl bicyclohexane liquid crystals (LCs) mixtures. Measurements are reported of the large anisotropic dielectric properties of two structurally similar LCs (1,2-difluoro-4-[trans-4-(trans-4-propylcyclohexyl)cyclohexyl] benzene and 1-cyano-2-fluoro-4-[trans-4-(trans-4-propylcyclohexyl) cyclohexyl] benzene) mixed with a zero dielectric anisotropic LC (1-methyl-2-fluoro-4-[trans-4-(trans-4-ethylcyclohexyl) cyclohexyl] benzene). The results indicate that the mixing proportions strongly influence the dielectric constants along with the longer molecular axis. For two samples which is made from meta-para- or meta-fluorine substituted molecules, the temperature dependence of the anisotropic dielectric striking resemble that of a unitary compound with para-fluorine substituted. The threshold voltage of the mixtures relies on the element that possesses a large dielectric anisotropic. The mixing of the materials leads to a slight increase for splay elastic constants in an anti-parallel measurement cell.     

Control of extraordinary light transmission through perforated metal films using liquid crystals

We calculate the effective dielectric tensor of a metal film penetrated by cylindrical holes filled with a nematic liquid crystal (NLC). We assume that the director of the NLC is parallel to the film, and that its direction within the plane can be controlled by a static magnetic field, via the Freedericksz effect. To calculate the effective dielectric tensor, we consider both randomly distributed holes (using a Maxwell-Garnett approximation) and a square lattice of holes (using a Fourier technique). Both the holes and the lattice constant of the square lattice are assumed small compared to the wavelength. The films are found to exhibit extraordinary light transmission at special frequencies related to the surface plasmon resonances of the composite film. Furthermore, the frequencies of peak transmission are found to be substantially split when the dielectric in the holes is anisotropic. For typical NLC parameters, the splitting is of order 5–10% of the metal plasma frequency. Thus, the extraordinary transmission can be controlled by a static magnetic or electric field whose direction can be rotated to orient the director of the NLC. Finally, as a practical means of producing the NLC-filled holes, we consider the case where the entire perforated metal film is dipped into a pool of NLC, so that all the holes are filled with the NLC, and there are also homogeneous slabs of NLC on both sides of the film. The transmission in this geometry is shown to have similar characteristics to that in which the NLC-filled screen is placed in air.     

Investigation of dielectric properties and diffraction efficiency enhancements caused by photothermal effect in DR9 dye-doped nematic liquid crystal

In this work, we studied dielectric properties and laser-induced refractive index changes originating from photothermal effects of liquid crystal material doped with Disperse Red 9 (DR9) dye. Dye concentration is arranged to be between percentages changing from 0.2 wt.% to 1 wt.% in E63 nematic liquid crystal. Nonlinear optical properties such as diffraction efficiency (η) and refractive index modulation (Δn) were investigated by diffraction grating measurements. It was found the diffraction efficiency of pure E63 nematic liquid crystal is 1%. As the doping amount of DR9 dye in nematic LC is increased, diffraction efficiency took higher values and the maximum diffraction efficiency of 10% was gained with E63 doped with 0.8 wt.%DR9 dye. Moreover, dielectric permittivity and dielectric anisotropy values of the samples were investigated in the frequency range of 100 Hz-10 MHz by using dielectric spectroscopy technique. It was observed that dielectric constant values of the liquid crystal material are strongly affected by doping with dye.     

Thermal and optical study of semiconducting CNTs-doped nematic liquid crystalline material

We report the thermal and spectroscopic analysis of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-doped nematic liquid crystal (NLC) material. The CNTs have been oriented in the p-ethoxybenzylidene p-butylaniline NLC. The thermal study of the CNTs doped nematic mixtures shows a significant decrease in the isotropic to nematic phase transition temperature. However higher doping concentration of CNTs has led to the further increase in transition temperature. The UV-Visible spectroscopy has been attempted on the CNTs/NLC mixtures at room temperature. The investigated NLC present one absorption band corresponding to π–π* electronic transition. A red shift of λ_max with the increasing concentration of CNTs in the mixture has been observed. The band gap of NLC has been found to decrease after the doping of CNTs. The absorbance was measured for the UV light, polarized parallel and perpendicular to the LC director in the planar aligned cell.     

Infrared cylindrical cloak in nanosphere dispersed liquid crystal metamaterial

We present a design of an infrared cylindrical cloak using nanosphere dispersed nematic liquid crystal (NLC) metamaterial following the approach of Smith's group [Science 314, 977 (2006)]. Cloaking conditions require spatial distribution of liquid crystal birefringence with constant extraordinary index of refraction and radially dependent ordinary index of refraction. An approximate analytical formula for the latter is derived. Finite element (FE) simulations confirm the cloaking effect. Owing to the tunable birefringence of the liquid crystal component, such cloaking material offers the interesting possibilities of real-time control of invisibility. The possibility of experimental realization is briefly discussed.     

Applied electric field effect on light-scattering birefringence of dye-doped liquid crystal molecule and consistent neural network empirical physical formula construction for scattering intensities

In this paper, we realized two objectives. Firstly, birefringence of azo and anthraquinone dye-doped nematic liquid crystal (NLC) molecules was investigated by applied electric field dependent laser scattering intensities. The birefringence was essentially calculated from ordinary and extraordinary ray phase difference, which is determined from the measured intensities corresponding to parallel and perpendicular orientations of analyzer to polarizer. The birefringence was found to be dependent on both applied voltage and the kind of the doping dye. As the second objective, by nonlinear universal function approximator layered feedforward neural network (LFNN), we constructed explicit form of empirical physical formulas (EPFs) for experimentally measured dye-doped NLC nonlinear scattering intensities. Excellent LFNN test set predictions over yet-to-be measured experimental data proved that the constructed LFNN-EPFs estimated the measured intensities consistently. The correlation coefficients assessing the goodness of predictions were about r = 0.998for all cases. The LFNN-EPFs also extracted the intensity dependency on the kind of dye used. When theoretical and LFNN-EPFs intensities are compared, we conclude that given certain experimental conditions, theoretical and LFNN-EPFs predictions are in excellent agreement. In this sense, we can say that the physical laws embedded in the birefringence scattering data can be consistently extracted by LFNN. Therefore, judging from the consistent extraction of the molecular dependencies of pure and doped NLC intensities, we predict that the LFNN-EPFs can help to identify unknown molecular structural parameters in liquid crystal extracts. More concretely, by suitable mathematical operations such as differentiation, integration, minimization on these intensity LFNN-EPFs, some useful information into the charge distributions of the LC molecules can be gained.     

Suppression of relaxation modes in dye dispersed SmC* phase

We report the results of dielectric and electro-optical properties of ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC), Felix 17/100, exhibiting chiral smectic C phase and dye dispersed FLCs. The polarization measurement on pristine and dye dispersed FLC mixture shows decrease in the value of polarization, indicating the distribution of dye dipole in a direction opposite to the orientation of FLC molecule. The rotational viscosity also decreases accordingly as shown by the measurement of response time. Dielectric measurement shows existence of two relaxation modes both in pure FLC and dye dispersed FLC. The relaxation strength of Goldstone mode decreases with the dispersion of dye and the relaxation frequency of this mode shifts towards the high-frequency side. The second relaxation mode arises due to the formation of domains at the surface interface. The dispersion of dye into FLC suppresses the domains.     

Effect of graphene oxide dispersion in antiferroelectric liquid crystal mixture in the verge of SmC* to SmCA* phase transition

The continuous growing demand for nanoscience applications and the improvement in the performance of liquid crystal based devices has been extensively required by the technological world. Recent progress in the field of liquid crystals has found its practical implementation in various display and non display devices which experiences obstacle due to impurity effects that reduces its performance. The dispersion of nanoparticles in liquid crystal medium helps in the reduction of impurity ions and thus improving the performance of liquid crystal based devices. The present work is based on the collective dielectric relaxation processes that have been observed in antiferroelectric liquid crystal (AFLC) mixture W1000 dispersed with 0.1% wt/wt and 0.3% wt/wt concentrations of graphene oxide. Graphene oxide itself favors vertical alignment and the coupling of AFLC W1000 mixture with graphene oxide affects its molecular ordering. This has been confirmed from the polarizing optical micrographs. The dielectric relaxation modes have been observed with and without the application of bias voltage in SmC* to SmC_A* phase transition during cooling cycle. The appearance and disappearance of P_L, P_H and X modes have been observed and are explained on the basis of molecular interactions. Graphene oxide dispersed system favors homeotropic alignment (dark state) and the application of bias field will convert it into homogenous alignment (bright state). Graphene oxide dispersion find prospective applications in good contrast display devices, supercapacitors, electronic gadgets, rechargeable batteries. Electro optical results unveil the faster response time, decreased rotational viscosity and spontaneous polarization with no change in tilt angle for the dispersed system. These observations can be exploited in photonic switches with sub millisecond response time which are required for fabricating faster liquid crystal devices.     

Electric method for studying reorientation dynamics of the nematic liquid crystal director

A method has been proposed for studying the reorientation dynamics of the nematic liquid crystal (NLC) director using the results of measurements of the electric response of an LC cell. The simulation of the time dependences of the current in an LC cell with a homogeneous orientation is carried out upon variation of the applied voltage, the initial tilt angle of the director, dielectric anisotropy, and the elasticity coefficient, as well as the dynamic viscosity, density, and ion mobility in the NLC. A comparison of the experimental and computational curves of the electric response for NLC 5CB shows their good agreement. The method makes it possible to monitor the steady-state current, the density, and the ion mobility in NLCs.     

氢键诱导液晶的DSC和变温红外光谱研究

制备了两个分别基于4,4’-联吡啶(BPy)和丙基反式环己基苯甲酸(PCBA)以及BPy和丙基反式双环己基甲酸(PCCA)的氢键液晶复合物(PCBA-BPy和PCCA-BPy),结合使用偏光显微镜(POM),用差示扫描量热(DSC)和变温傅里叶变换红外光谱对它们的中间相性能和分子间氢键的热稳定性进行了表征。结果表明,这两个氢键复合物都具有由于分子间氢键作用而导致的近晶相,但它们中存在的氢键作用却不相同,在PCBA-BPy中,温度变化时,发生氢键结合的羰基的吸收峰的位置仅在发生晶型转变时有突变,而在PCCA-BPy中,温度变化时,其羰基的吸收峰的位置则基本不发生突变。另外,当温度高于它们的清亮点时,这两个氢键液晶复合物的分子间氢键都发生部分分解。     

Absorption and Emission Properties of a New Two-photon Absorption Dye

The emission properties of a newly synthesized organic two-photon absorption dye, trans-4-[p-(N-ethyl-N-ethylamino)-styryl]-N-methyl-pyridinium tetraphenylborate, have been investigated. When pumped by infrared pulses from a picosecond Nd∶YAG laser, the dye exhibits intense upconverted fluorescence and strong superradiance properties. For comparison, the one-photon induced fluorescence and superradiance are also measured. The one- and two-photon excited fluorescent lifetimes are 86 and 64 ps, respectively. The maximum efficiency of the dye is measured to be 1.97% and the upconversion efficiencies at different pump wavelengths have also been investigated by the optical parametric amplifier.     

Absorption and Emission Properties of a New Two-photon Absorption Dye

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Electrical tuning of photonic crystals infilled with liquid crystals

In this paper we perform a complete study of electrical tuning in liquid crystal-infilled two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystals (PCs). The nematic liquid crystal (NLC) is characterized by a full range of bulk and surface elastic parameters. An essentially DC tuning field is applied in the axial direction. By minimizing the total (elastic plus electromagnetic) free energy, the configuration of the NLC directors, as a function of radial distance, is obtained. Three possible configurations are considered: escaped radial, planar radial, and axial. It is found that, in general, the escaped radial configuration is the preferred one. However, for sufficiently large applied fields, a phase transition occurs to the axial configuration. For example, in the case of the NLC 5CB, this transition is realized at about 14 V/μm provided that the cylinder radius is greater than about 50 nm. The configuration of the NLC directors determines the dielectric tensor as function of radial distance and this, in turn, leads to the eigenvalue equation for the PC. We present two such equations: one exact and the other approximate. The exact eigenvalue equation is based on the full anisotropy of the dielectric tensor and does not result in the usual separation of normal modes in a 2D PC. The approximate eigenvalue equation is derived from the average (over the cylinder cross-section) dielectric tensor and leads to modes that are polarized in the directions either parallel (E-mode) or perpendicular (H-mode) to the cylinders. Our calculations of the photonic band structure, by both methods, show that the approximate calculation works very well for the 5CB NLC cylinders in a silicon oxide (silica) host. This allows us to introduce the terminology quasi-E and quasi-H polarizations. We show how the partial photonic band gap in the [1 0 0] direction for these polarizations can be tuned and even completely closed. This behavior could be applied to the design of versatile, tunable polarization filters.     

Shifting of transition temperature of ferroelectric liquid crystals due to addition of dye-An optical and dielectric study

In order to study the shifting of phase transition temperature of ferroelectric liquid crystals due to addition of dye molecules, we have investigated two ferroelectric liquid crystal materials (Felix 16/030 and Felix 16/100) and their five mixtures with Anthraquinone dye (1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% wt/wt). The phase transition scheme has been investigated and analyzed by results obtained from the optical transmittance and the dielectric permittivity study with variation of temperature in the range of 30 to 100 °C. Both the samples clearly show the shifting of phase transition temperature with dye concentration, especially the SmC*-SmA phase transition temperature. It is also clear from the study that SmC*-SmA phase transition phenomenon also becomes stronger with the addition of dye molecules. A theoretical explanation has also been given for shifting of phase transition temperature. The amount of shift in transition temperature agrees well as obtained from optical and dielectric studies.     

向列相液晶染料可调谐激光器的研究

对向列相液晶染料的可调谐激光器进行了光学特性研究. 以650 nm为中 心波长设计了SiO₂和TiO₂多层膜的一维光子晶体, 以激光染料与向列相液晶的混合物作为增益介质层, 制备了波长可调谐激光器.用Nd: YAG倍频脉冲激光器输出的532 nm激光抽运所制备的激光器样品得出如下光学特性: 激光发射波长随温度调谐范围为605.5---639.8 nm, 达到34.3 nm, 随电压调谐范围为634.5---619.5 nm, 达到15 nm. 发射激光每脉冲的阈值能量为12.3 μJ, 激光线宽小于1 nm.     

Dielectric and optical properties of polymer-liquid crystal composite

Dielectric properties of polymer-liquid crystal mixture, having constituent polymer, poly-butyl methacrylate (PBMA) and liquid crystal, cholesteryl nonanoate, are reported as a function of frequency and temperature. The measurement has been done in a temperature range of 300-375 K and frequency range of 100 Hz-10 MHz. The dielectric permittivity and dielectric loss shows significant changes with the addition of polymer molecules in liquid crystal. The significant feature of composite formation is that the pure liquid crystal and polymer do not show dielectric relaxation in the frequency range covered, while the composite shows relaxation peak at a particular frequency. The optical transmittance of pure liquid crystal and composite has also been measured and compared.     

Analysis of birefringence property of three different nematic liquid crystals dispersed with TiO2 nanoparticles

In the present work TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) have been dispersed into three different nematic liquid crystals (2020, 1823A and 1550C) in different concentration. The value of the birefringence (Δn) has been calculated by the transmitted intensity method at a 632.8 nm wavelength. NLC 2020 used in the present study is a high birefringent material (Δn = 0.44), NLC 1550C is a low birefringent material (Δn = 0.067) and NLC 1823A is a mid birefringent material (Δn = 0.14). An increased value of birefringence has been found after dispersion of TiO₂ NPs in all three NLCs but this increment depends upon the concentration of the dopant material, temperature range and chemical character of the mixtures. It is suggested that this LC materials can be applicable in making of phase shifters, compensators and many more photonic devices.