Ferronematic Phase Research Articles

Magnetic field induced isotropic ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition in thermotropic liquid crystal

Experiments on liquid crystals doped with ferromagnetic nanoparticles predicted the isotropic ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition. The magnetic field induced isotropic ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition in thermotropic liquid crystal has been studied theoretically. Theoretical model is based on Flory–Huggins theory of isotropic mixing and Landau-de Gennes theory. The impact of ferromagnetic nanoparticles and magnetic field on the isotropic ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition and transition temperature has been discussed. Theoretical results predict the magnetic field induced critical point of the isotropic ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition. The temperature and volume fraction of ferromagnetic nanoparticles dependence of the magnetic birefringence and Cotton-Mouton constant are calculated.

Two mechanisms for the formation of the ferronematic phase studied by dielectric spectroscopy

A non-chiral ferroelectric nematic compound with a 1,3-dioxane unit in the mesogenic core called 2,3′,4′,5′-tetrafluoro-[1,1′-biphenyl]-4-yl 2,6-difluoro-4-(5-propyl-1,3-dioxan-2-yl) benzoate (DIO) was studied by dielectric spectroscopy in the frequency range 0.1 Hz–10 MHz over a wide range of temperatures. The compound exhibits three nematic phases on cooling from the isotropic phase, i.e., the ordinary paraelectric nematic N; the intermediate nematic NX and the ferroelectric NF phase. The least frequency process is due to the dynamics of ions. The middle frequency relaxation process P1 is like as observed in other ferronematic compounds and this mode is a continuation of the molecular flip-flop motion in the isotropic phase to the collective dynamics of dipoles which are strongly coupled with the splay fluctuations in nematic phases. In addition to this process, DIO shows an additional collective relaxation process P2 at higher frequencies both in the N and the NX phases. This mode originates from the polar/chiral domains of the opposite chirality, these arise from the spontaneous symmetry breaking of achiral mesogens in the N phase. Both collective processes, P1 and P2, show soft mode-like characteristic behavior on cooling from the N to the NX-NF phase transition temperature and are shown to contribute independently to the formation of the ferronematic NF phase.

Chiral ferronematic liquid crystals: a physico-chemical analysis of phase transitions and induced helical twisting

ABSTRACT A possibility was assessed to modify physico-chemical properties of ferronematic mixtures by introducing additional mesogenic and non-mesogenic components. The mixture, consisting of RM734 and DIO at the 70:30 weight ratio of the components, was doped with nematic 5CB and its chiral isomer CB15. This allowed a substantial lowering of the ferronematic temperature range, as well as induction of helical twisting in both nematic (N) and ferronematic (NF) phases. The effects of 5CB and CB15 on the NF to N phase transition were nearly identical, but the isotropic transition temperature decreased more strongly upon addition of CB15. Optical transmission vs. temperature measurements showed lower transmittance in the NF phase, probably due to scattering on the domain boundaries. In the vicinity of the NF → N transition, a noticeable range of anomalously low transmission was noted both on heating and cooling, suggesting a complex character of molecular reorientation features. In the chiral NF (N*F) system, helical twisting was recorded using Grandjean-Cano wedge, with the helical pitch decreasing upon cooling in both N* and N*F phases. In the cooling mode, transient undulations emerged in the N*F phase. The complex picture of the ferronematic transition is supported by POM images taken at different temperatures.

Intrinsically chiral ferronematic liquid crystals: An inversion of the helical twist sense at the chiral nematic – Chiral ferronematic phase transition

The ferroelectric nematic phase is a unique example of a polar phase without positional order of the constituent molecules. The properties of the ferronematic phase formed by intrinsically chiral molecules are discussed. Chirality makes the phase structure helical with the similar pitch length in the N* and N F * phases, but with opposite sense. The materials show strong non-linear optical properties. • Intrinsically chiral mesogens forming ferroelectric fluidic nematic, N F *, phase were obtained and studied. • In both, paraelectric and ferroelectric nematic phases, molecular chirality leads to helical structure. • Inversion of helix twist sense was observed at the N*-N F *phase transition. • Giant dielectric permittivity, above 10 4 , was determined in ferroelectric nematic phase. • Strong nonlinear optical properties were confirmed for ferronematic phase. Strongly dipolar mesogenic compounds with a chiral center located in a lateral alkyl chain were synthesized, and shown to form the ferroelectric nematic phase. The presence of molecular chirality induced a helical structure in both the N* and N F * phases, but with opposite helix sense in the two phases. The relaxation frequency of the polar fluctuations is only weakly affected by helical structure, it was found to be slightly lower for the chiral N F * phase than for its achiral, non-branched counterpart with the same lateral chain length.

Freedericksz transition in ferronematic liquid crystal under weak anchoring conditions

Freedericksz effect is investigated theoretically for a ferronematic liquid crystal, which is a colloidal suspension of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in a nematic fluid. Considering a splay type Freedericksz geometry, weak anchoring conditions are assumed at the cell boundaries. The specific nature of this anchoring reveals a rich variety of stable ferronematic phases, which include uniform, distorted and saturated states. Apart from weak anchoring conditions at the cell boundaries, soft planar anchoring is assumed for the mesogenic molecules at the surface of a nanoparticle. The interplay between these two anchoring phenomena along with Frank type elastic theory determine the values of Freedericksz threshold between various ferronematic states. It is found that compared to relatively strong anchoring for the mesogens both at the cell boundaries and at the surface of the nanoparticles, weak anchoring significantly reduces the Freedericksz threshold field. Landau theory is then utilized to understand the nature of transition between different ferronematic states. Based on the phenomenon of segregation effect, these transitions are found to be either first order or second order in nature. The present theory is also extended to non-ferromagnetic nanoparticles and significant reduction in Freedericksz threshold is obtained. Finally, these results are corroborated with experimental findings.

Shear-induced ferrocholesteric-to-ferronematic transitions in magnetic field

We explore the effect of magnetic field and shear flow on the helicoidal structure of a ferrocholesteric liquid crystal (the suspension of magnetic nanoparticles in a cholesteric liquid crystal) with finite orientational coupling between magnetic nanoparticles and cholesteric matrix. We consider the geometry in which the helicoid axis is perpendicular to the magnetic field and the shear plane. It is shown how the interplay between magnetic and hydrodynamic forces affects the untwisting of the initial helical structure of the ferrocholesteric, inducing orientation transitions into the ferronematic phase with different orientational and magnetic ordering.We find the field dependences of the ferrocholesteric helix pitch and obtain diagrams of orientation transitions. It is established that the increase in the anchoring energy brings to the reduction of threshold fields necessary for the untwisting of the structure. We study the magnetic characteristics of a deformed ferrocholesteric state and analyze the ability of shear stresses to magnetize a ferrocholesteric liquid crystal. Two regimes of the magnetization vector behavior that depend on the magnitude of the anchoring energy have been found.

Superparamagnetic nanoparticles with LC polymer brush shell as efficient dopants for ferronematic phases.

Liquid crystal (LC) based magnetic materials consisting of LC hosts doped with functional magnetic nanoparticles enable optical switching of the mesogens at moderate magnetic field strengths and thereby open the pathway for the design of novel smart devices. A promising route for the fabrication of stable ferronematic phases is the attachment of a covalently bound LC polymer shell onto the surface of nanoparticles. With this approach, ferronematic phases based on magnetically blocked particles and the commercial LC 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) liquid crystal were shown to have a sufficient magnetic sensitivity, but the mechanism of the magneto-nematic coupling is unidentified. To get deeper insight into the coupling modes present in these systems, we prepared ferronematic materials based on superparamagnetic particles, which respond to external fields with internal magnetic realignment instead of mechanical rotation. This aims at clarifying whether the hard coupling of the magnetization to the particle's orientation (magnetic blocking) is a necessary component of the magnetization-nematic director coupling mechanism. We herein report the fabrication of a ferronematic phase consisting of surface-functionalized superparamagnetic Fe3O4 particles and 5CB. We characterize the phase behavior and investigate the magneto-optical properties of the new ferronematic phase and compare it to the ferronematic system containing magnetically blocked CoFe2O4 particles to get information about the origin of the magneto-nematic coupling.

Cybotactic nematic phase of achiral unsymmetrical bent-core liquid crystals – Quelling of polar ordering and the influence of terminal substituent moiety

Nematic phase of bent-core liquid crystals (LCs) exhibiting cybotactic clusters (NCyb) have gained significant importance owing to its promising ability to demonstrate macroscopic biaxiality and the ferronematic phase. In this context, three achiral unsymmetrical four-ring bent-core LC compounds, bearing a long alkyloxy chain and differing only in the terminal substituent moiety (methyl, chloro, nitro), are designed and synthesized followed by their optical, dielectric, electro-optic and structural investigations. The presence of NCyb in the methyl and chloro substituted compounds was confirmed via dielectric spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction observations. The absence of ferroelectric behaviour in any of these compounds, even in the cybotactic nematic phase and in presence of polar substituent moieties (chloro and nitro), is attributed to the increased alkyloxy chain length and antiparallel molecular arrangement. The density functional theory (DFT) optimized molecular structure along with the experimental observations further substantiates these findings. The study establishes that cybotactic clusters and polar end moiety, although being a prerequisite for ferroelectric-like nature, do not necessarily result in a ferronematic phase.

Magnetic field induced transitions in soft compensated ferrocholesteric liquid crystals

Within the continuum theory, we study the influence of a magnetic field on the orientational and magnetic properties of a helicoidal liquid-crystal ferrosuspension, the so-called ferrocholesteric. We consider the compensated ferrocholesterics with soft planar coupling of magnetic particles with a liquid crystal matrix. We show that under the influence of a magnetic field applied perpendicularly to the axis of the helical structure of a ferrocholesteric, the unwinding of the helical structure takes place, and the transition to the ferronematic phase occurs. We study the dependence of the phase transition field on the suspension material parameters. The behavior of the average magnetization and the pitch of the helical structure as a function of a magnetic field is studied. It is shown that at soft coupling of particles with a liquid crystal matrix, the magnetization vector and the director have different pitches of the spiral structure in an external magnetic field.

Reentrant phases in compensated ferrocholesterics

Influence of magnetic field on orientation and magnetic properties of a compensated ferrocholesteric, a suspension of needle-like ferromagnetic particles in a cholesteric liquid crystal, was studied theoretically. A phase transition from a ferrocholesteric to a ferronematic state in a magnetic field oriented normally to the axis of the helical structure was considered. The dependences of the transition field to the ferronematic phase on the material parameters of the suspension and of the helical structure pitch and magnetization on the field strength were investigated. A possibility of existence of a reentrant ferrocholesteric phase was shown.

Magnetic-field induced orientational transition in a helicoidal liquid-crystalline antiferromagnet

The magnetic-field induced orientational transition in helicoidal liquid-crystalline antiferromagnets representing compensated suspensions of magnetic nanoparticles in cholesteric liquid crystals is theoretically studied. The untwisting of a helicoidal structure and the behavior of mean magnetization as a function of the field strength and material parameters are investigated. It is shown that the magnetic subsystems in the field-untwisted ferronematic phase are not completely compensated, and the ferronematic phase is ferrimagnetic.

Orientational transitions in antiferromagnetic liquid crystals

The orientational phases in an antiferromagnetic liquid crystal (ferronematic) based on the nematic liquid crystal with the negative anisotropy of diamagnetic susceptibility are studied in the framework of the continuum theory. The ferronematic was assumed to be compensated; i.e., in zero field, impurity ferroparticles with the magnetic moments directed parallel and antiparallel to the director are equiprobably distributed in it. It is established that under the action of a magnetic field the ferronematic undergoes orientational transitions compensated (antiferromagnetic) phase–non-uniform phase–saturation (ferrimagnetic) phase. The analytical expressions for threshold fields of the transitions as functions of material parameters are obtained. It is shown that with increasing magnetic impurity segregation parameter, the threshold fields of the transitions significantly decrease. The bifurcation diagram of the ferronematic orientational phases is built in terms of the energy of anchoring of magnetic particles with the liquid-crystal matrix and magnetic field. It is established that the Freedericksz transition is the second-order phase transition, while the transition to the saturation state can be second- or first-order. In the latter case, the suspension exhibits orientational bistability. The orientational and magnetooptical properties of the ferronematic in different applied magnetic fields are studied.

Striped ferronematic ground states in a spin-orbit-coupledS=1Bose gas

We theoretically establish the mean-field phase diagram of a homogeneous spin-$1$, spin-orbit coupled Bose gas as a function of the spin-dependent interaction parameter, the Raman coupling strength and the quadratic Zeeman shift. We find that the interplay between spin-orbit coupling and spin-dependent interactions leads to the occurrence of ferromagnetic or ferronematic phases which also break translational symmetry. For weak Raman coupling, increasing attractive spin-dependent interactions (as in $^{87}$Rb or $^7$Li) induces a transition from a uniform to a stripe XY ferromagnet (with no nematic order). For repulsive spin-dependent interactions however (as in $^{23}$Na), we find a transition from an $XY$ spin spiral phase ($<S_{z} >= 0$ and uniform total density) with uniaxial nematic order, to a biaxial ferronematic, where the total density, spin vector and nematic director oscillate in real space. We investigate the stability of these phases against the quadratic Zeeman effect, which generally tends to favor uniform phases with either ferromagnetic or nematic order but not both. We discuss the relevance of our results to ongoing experiments on spin-orbit coupled, spinor Bose gases.

Ferrofluid to ferronematic phase transition in lyotropic liquid crystals

We present a mean-field analysis of the phase transitions of ferronematic in lyotropic liquid crystals. The model free energy is written in terms of the orientational order parameter, magnetization and micellar concentration. We find four different phases: (i) isotropic ferrofluid, (ii) isotropic micellar ferrofluid, (iii) lyotropic paranematic and (iv) lyotropic ferronematic. We put special emphasis on the phase transition from isotropic micellar ferrofluid to ferronematic phase. It was observed from the theoretical calculations that the transition from the isotropic micellar ferrofluid to lyotropic ferronematic phase is weakly first order. The temperature and concentration dependence of the magnetic birefringence and Cotton–Mouton constant are calculated.

Ground state of a two-component dipolar Fermi gas in a harmonic potential

Interacting two component Fermi gases are at the heart of our understanding of macroscopic quantum phenomena like superconductivity. Changing nature of the interaction is expected to head to novel quantum phases. Here we study the ground state of a two component fermionic gas in a harmonic potential with dipolar and contact interactions. Using a variational Wigner function we present the phase diagram of the system with equal but opposite values of the magnetic moment. We identify the second order phase transition from paramagnetic to ferronematic phase. Moreover, we show the impact of the experimentally relevant magnetic field on the stability and the magnetization of the system. We also investigate a two component Fermi gas with large but almost equal values of the magnetic moment to study how the interplay between contact and dipolar interactions affects the stability properties of the mixture. To be specific we discuss experimentally relevant parameters for ultracold $^{161}$Dy.

Antiferrosmectic ground state of two-component dipolar Fermi gases: An analog of meson condensation in nuclear matter

We show that an antiferrosmectic-$C$ phase has lower energy at high densities than the nonmagnetized Fermi gas and ferronematic phases in an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms, or molecules, with large magnetic dipole moments. This phase, which is analogous to meson condensation in dense nuclear matter, is a one-dimensional periodic structure in which the fermions localize in layers with their pseudospin direction aligned parallel to the layers and staggered layer by layer.

Magnetic and nematic orderings in spin-1 antiferromagnets with single-ion anisotropy

We study a spin-1 Heisenberg model with exchange interaction $J$, uniaxial single-ion exchange anisotropy $D$, and Zeeman coupling to a magnetic field $B$ parallel to the symmetry axis. We compute the $(D/J,B/J)$ quantum phase diagram for square and simple cubic lattices by combining analytical and quantum Monte Carlo approaches, and find a transition between $XY$ antiferromagnetic and ferronematic phases that spontaneously break the $U(1)$ symmetry of the model. In the language of bosonic gases, this is a transition between a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of single bosons and a BEC of pairs. Our work opens up new avenues for measuring this transition in real magnets.

First Order Orientational Transitions in Ferronematic Liquid Crystals

The influence of external magnetic field on the orientational structure of a ferronematic liquid crystal is analyzed. We use modified Rapini potential for the anisotropic part of coupling energy between the ferronematic and the limiting surfaces. We show that under magnetic field action one of three ferronematics phases is possible: the uniform state, the disturbed state and the saturation state. We find that the transition between these ferronematic phases can be either the first- or the second order transition depending on the surface anchoring anisotropy and segregation parameter. We show the influence of the segregation effect on the orientational transitions in ferronematics.

Ferronematic Ground State of the Dilute Dipolar Fermi Gas

It is shown that a homogeneous two-component Fermi gas with (long-range) dipolar and short-range isotropic interactions has a ferronematic phase for suitable values of the dipolar and short-range coupling constants. The ferronematic phase is characterized by having a nonzero magnetization and long-range orientational uniaxial order. The Fermi surface of the spin-up (-down) component is elongated (compressed) along the direction of the magnetization.

Phase Behavior of Nanoparticles in a Thermotropic Liquid Crystal

In this work, we describe the outstanding behavior of a nanocomposite system composed of the thermotropic liquid crystal 5CB doped with nanoparticles of the magnetic iron oxide maghemite (gamma-Fe(2)O(3)). We show that the I-N transition is associated with a reversible gathering of nanoparticles inside droplets of the ferronematic phase coexisting with a nonmagnetic nematic host phase.