ABSTRACT 5CB liquid crystal (LC) is a well-studied material for a variety of applications due to its orientational ordering and viscosity. LCs mostly suffer from ionic impurities which can be filtered using metal oxide nanoparticles. Beyond this conventional role of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) in ionic impurity filtration in LCs, we have employed a new methodology to improve the planar orientation of 5CB molecules by depositing a thin layer of NPs on either side of the ITO electrode. The 5CB LC exhibits a typical birefringent schlieren texture; however, the presence of TiO2 layer alters the molecular orientation. On the TiO2 surface, the 5CB LC molecules showed schlieren defect points characterised by both twofold (s = ± 1/2) and fourfold (s = ± 1) brush-like structures. The change in texture and lowering of dielectric permittivity might be attributed to the change in the pretilt angle of 5CB molecules owing to the mutual interactions between 5CB and TiO2 layer. Remarkably, the 5CB LC within the TiO2-coated cell attains the isotropic phase at lower temperature as compared to the cells coated with polyimide SE-130. The underlying mechanism for coarsening kinetics in the 5CB is elucidated using the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner (LSW) theory.