Abstract

Here we report the results of the dielectric and polarization measurements in the smectic and the tilted hexatic phases of a liquid crystal-nano composite consisting of commercially available ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) doped with the ZnO nanoparticles (NPs). It has been observed that the inclusion of NPs not only decreases in the transition temperature but also dielectric strength of the Goldstone mode without altering the associated relaxation frequency. An additional relaxation observed for the FLC-ZnO nanocomposite, but not present in the pure material is attributed to the manifestation of the primary director mode. The observed results are analyzed using the generalized Landau model to understand the effect of the coupling between the polarization and optical tilt angle. While there is no change in either the magnitude of the tilt or the polarization across the orthogonal to tilted smectic phase transitions, clear changes are seen for both the parameter across the transition to the hexatic phase. The FLC-ZnO nanocomposite exhibits decreased rotational viscosity and a faster response time, a feature attractive from an application point of view.

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