Optical properties of a mesogen by image analysis |
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Authors: | S Sreehari Sastry ST Ha B Gowri Sankara Rao K Mallika T Vindhya Kumari |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Physics , Acharya Nagarjuna University , Nagarjunanagar , India sreehari_ssastry@yahoo.com;3. Department of Chemical Science , Jalan Universiti , Perak , Malaysia;4. Department of Physics , Acharya Nagarjuna University , Nagarjunanagar , India |
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Abstract: | An image analysis technique in conjunction with polarising optical microscopy (POM) is proposed for assessment of the thermo-optical properties of homogeneously aligned chiral ester liquid crystals of the type ((S)-(-)-2-methylbutyl 4′-(4″-n-alkanoyloxybenzoyloxy) biphenyl-4-carboxylates, where n?=?16 or 18. Chiral ester textures are recorded as a function of temperature using POM provided with a hot-stage and a high-resolution colour camera. Temperature-dependent optical parameters, or thermo-optical properties such as optical transmission, degree of polarisation, absorption coefficient and birefringence are computed for chiral esters by analysing the texture of samples using MATLAB software. This is a simple experimental technique for observing how the optical parameters of liquid crystals change with temperature. |
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Keywords: | image analysis chiral liquid crystals optical properties polarisation anisotropy absorption coefficient birefringence |
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