Resistivity Measurements on Aligned Amphiphilic Liquid Crystalline States

We measured the resistivity of a ternary liquid mixture consisting of decylammoniumchloride, ammoniumchloride and water (45:5:50 wt%). The mixture forms a nematic phase between 41°C and 61°C; below 41°C a neat soap, and above 61°C an isotropic micellar solution. The resistivity decreases with increasing temperature. In the nematic and in the neat soap phases the resistivity is anisotropic, and it is higher for currents parallel to the director. The anisotropy increases strongly with decreasing temperature, due to a much stronger temperature dependence of the resistivity parallel to the director. The changes accompanying the phase transitions are small. The surprisingly small change of the resistivity parallel to the director at the nematic to neat soap transition indicates that the lamellae in the neat soap contain a large number of defects.