Small and Large Angle Quasi-Elastic Scattering Experiments by Using Nuclear Resonant Scattering on Typical and Amphiphilic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

The microscopic slow dynamics with a time scale of around 100 ns in soft matters is important for understanding the origins of their mesoscopic structures. However, it is difficult to observe the slow dynamics at the microscopic level. Here, a newly developed time-domain interferometry (TDI) method using nuclear resonant scattering was applied to study the microscopic dynamics in a typical liquid crystal 4-cyano-4'-octylbiphenyl (8CB) and a partly fluorinated amphiphilic liquid crystal 11-(4'-cyanobiphenyl-4-yloxy)undecyl pentadecafluorooctanoate (BI) under a smectic A phase. As a result, the relaxation times of the molecular correlations in the intersmectic and intrasmectic layers could be obtained simultaneously by the TDI method and similar degrees of the anisotropic dynamical behaviour of 8CB and BI were observed.