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Nanocomposites of ferroelectric liquid crystals and FeCo nanoparticles: towards a magnetic response via the application of a small electric field |
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| Authors: | Patricio N Romero-Hasler Lynn K Kurihara Lamar O Mair Irving N Weinberg E A Soto-Bustamante |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Chile , Santiago, Chile;2. NextFED, Inc , McLean, VA, USA;3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park , MD, USA;4. Weinberg Medical Physics, Inc ., North Bethesda, MD, USA |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT We study a nanocomposite consisting of a ferroelectric liquid crystal and a magnetic nanoparticle in order to explore the possibility of using it as a magnetic resonant imaging contrast agent which will measure a field of 20 V/m. To achieve this we use the ferroic properties exhibited by the nanocomposite. We used the ferroelectric liquid crystal 2-(4-((2-fluorooctyl)oxy)phenyl)-5-(octyloxy)pyrimidine mixed with FeCo nanoparticles nominally 2–3 nm in diameter in concentrations of 0.56, 4.3 and 10.8 wt%. The 10.8 wt% sample was chosen for our study because the nanoparticles acted as a lubricant for the ferroelectric liquid crystal. This concentration yields nanoparticle clusters in about 5 ? 10 μm diameter spherulites. An electric field as low as 5V/cm is enough to turn and realign the spherulites where the particles are contained. We estimate the value of the magnetic in a spehrulite and associate it to the number of spherulites aligned as a function of electric field. We find thus that we can achieve low electric fields. |
| Keywords: | Nanocomposites ferroelectric liquid crystals magnetic nanoparticles electric field effects |