Effect of molecular structure of a dichroic dye and the ordering of a liquid crystal on the dichroism of the dye-liquid crystal binary mixtures

The orientational ordering of dyes doped into liquid crystals has been investigated. The experimental results show that the ordering of the dyes can be expressed as a function of the order parameter of the liquid crystal host and the molecular structure of the dye. In addition a theory of the ordering of molecules in a binary mixture system has been derived by extending Kimura's theory. The validity of the theory has been confirmed by comparison with the experimental results using various combination of azo dyes and liquid crystals.