Abstract
Nowadays, nanomaterials in liquid crystals and their possible applications in the design of tunable, responsive, and wearable devices are among the most promising research directions. In the majority of cases, all liquid crystal based devices have one thing in common; namely, they are driven by electric fields. This type of device driving can be altered by minor amounts of ions typically present in liquid crystal materials. Therefore, it is very important to understand how nanodopants can affect ions in liquid crystals. In this paper, a recently developed model of contaminated nanoparticles is applied to existing experimental data. The presented analysis unambiguously indicates that, in general, nanomaterials in liquid crystals can behave as a source of ions or as ion traps. Physical factors determining the type of the nanoparticle behaviour and their effects on the concentration of ions in liquid crystals are discussed.
Highlights
Thermotropic liquid crystals are widely used in the design of tunable electro-optical devices
There are electro-optical devices relying on ions in liquid crystals [5,6,7]
An elementary model of these regimes was recently proposed and developed in a series of papers [57,58,59,60,61]. This model introduced the ionic contamination of nanomaterials as a key factor enabling the possibility of different regimes (ion trapping, ion generation, and no change regime) in liquid crystals doped with nanomaterials [57,58,59,60,61]
Summary
Thermotropic liquid crystals are widely used in the design of tunable electro-optical devices. Liquid crystal devices such as LCD and tunable optical elements (filters, retarders, etc.) utilize the electric field effect when the applied electric field reorients liquid crystal molecules. An elementary model of these regimes was recently proposed and developed in a series of papers [57,58,59,60,61] This model introduced the ionic contamination of nanomaterials as a key factor enabling the possibility of different regimes (ion trapping (or ion capturing regime), ion generation (or ion releasing regime), and no change regime) in liquid crystals doped with nanomaterials [57,58,59,60,61]. The aforementioned model of contaminated nanoparticles in liquid crystals is applied to existing experimental results with the aim of shedding some light on the nature of ionic contamination of nanodopants and ion generation/ion trapping in liquid crystals doped with such nanomaterials
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