%0 Journal Article
%T Nanosphere in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Matrix: The Effect of Aggregation and Defects on the Dielectric and Electro-Optical Properties
%A Dharmendra Pratap Singh
%A Swadesh Kumar Gupta
%A Rajiv Manohar
%J Advances in Condensed Matter Physics
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/250301
%X High concentration (5£¿wt£¿%) of nanosphere (NS) has been dispersed in the ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) to analyze the effect of high dopant concentration in the FLC matrix. The FLC molecules actively interact with the NS. The presence of NS enhances the photoluminescence of the pure FLC material due to the coupling of localized surface plasmon resonance from NS with FLC molecules. The high concentration of NS causes an aggregation in the FLC matrix and creates topological defects. The defects and aggregation cause the change in electro-optical and dielectric properties of the pure FLC material. The bigger size of NS as compared to the smectic layer separation causes the warping in the smectic layer. Semiconducting nature of NS also affects the conductivity of the pure FLC. 1. Introduction The scope of nanotechnology, in the present age, is not only limited within the field of material science but also extended to all the fields of research and application. The fields like electronics, condense matter, and medical sciences are benefited from the application point of view when used with nanoscience [1¨C3]. The use of nanoscience in fields of liquid crystal has created some interesting and useful properties [4]. Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) have salient features over the trivial liquid crystals (LCs) because of their tilted smectic phase and the chirality of the molecules [5]. They have proved their applicability of showing faster response time and the instruments based on less threshold voltage [6]. In addition to these properties, they have also shown their potential for the field effect transistors (FETs), spatial light modulators (SLMs), switchable devices, and nonvolatile memory effects [7, 8]. The prospective of tuning the properties of liquid crystals due to the addition of nanomaterial is currently a hot topic in liquid crystal research [9¨C11]. The composite system of the pure FLC and nanomaterial has already shown its utility in the FLC-based devices with greater efficiency [12]. In the present paper, we report a comprehensive study of the dielectric and electro-optical (E-O) properties of a ferroelectric liquid crystal highly doped with nanospheres (NS). The present work has a motive to analyze the effect of high concentration of the nanomaterial on the FLC matrix and also on the E-O and dielectric parameters. The NS were added in 5%£¿wt/wt concentration to the pure FLC 16/100. The results show that the doping of NS alters the physical properties of the pure FLC. The investigated results are discussed and explained on the basis of the
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/acmp/2013/250301/