Dielectric relaxation spectroscopy of guest-host ferroelectric liquid crystals: influence of anthraquinone dye

The dielectric spectroscopy of a short pitch and high spontaneous polarization ferroelectric liquid crystal mixture and its guest-host derivatives with different wt/wt ratio of anthraquinone blue dichroic dye has been studied over a wide frequency range of 50 Hz-1 MHz. The increase in dye concentration results in the decrease of the permittivity of the material in the SmC* phase, however, an opposite effect is observed in the SmA phase. The influence of bias voltage on the dielectric parameters has also been investigated. A new relaxation mode has been observed with a relaxation frequency of ∼300 kHz and dielectric strength of ∼5 at room temperature.