Electro-optical and dielectric characteristics of ferroelectric liquid crystal dispersed with palladium nanoparticles

Abstract

We present the dielectric and electro-optical studies of a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) material, namely KCFLC 7S, dispersed with different concentration of selenium docosane (SD) capped palladium nanoparticles (PdNPs). The dielectric relaxation behavior and SmC*-SmA* phase transition temperature of PdNPs-KCFLC 7S composites are found to be almost comparable to that pure KCFLC 7S material. The spontaneous polarization (Ps) and rotational viscosity (η) of PdNPs-KCFLC 7S composites have been increased remarkably in comparison to that of pure one, and this, in turn modified the switching response time (τR) of the composites. The changes in the properties of FLC material are found to be strongly dependent on the concentration of PdNPs. The results revealed 0.01 wt% PdNPs as the optimal concentration to be added into KCFLC 7S material. The observed changes in the properties of KCFLC 7S material have been attributed to the steric interactions among alkyl chains of SD capped PdNPs and FLC molecules. We believe that these results will pave a way to explore the feasibility of PdNPs as the additives in improving the physical and the electro-optical properties of FLC materials.