Abstract

Information on the properties of liquid crystals (LC) can be derived by using atomic or molecular probes and measuring their NMR spectra. It has emerged that xenon-129 (due to its large polarizable electron cloud; spin ½) is very sensitive to various changes in its local environment. In LCs, this means sensitivity to temperature, density, phase transitions, phase structure, diamagnetic susceptibility, orientational and positional order parameters, and tilt angle. Information about electric field gradients in LCs may be obtained through quadrupolar xenon-131 (spin 3/2). Xenon-131 may also distinguish between uniaxial and biaxial LC phases via the second-order quadrupole shift. This article describes experiments and related theories of 129/131Xe NMR in liquid crystalline samples. Keywords: liquid crystals; xenon; phase transitions; order parameters; quadrupole coupling; second-order quadrupole shift; tilt angle

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