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Abstract
We report proton NMR experiments on the liquid crystal material N-(p-methoxybenzylidene) p-n-butylaniline (MBBA) at 100MHz in the temperature range 110-350 K. The phase diagram was investigated by means of second moment and spin-lattice relaxation measurements in order to establish connections between dynamics and phase transitions. The results show that in a slow cooling experiment, two processes contribute to the relaxation, a slow ethyl group motion together with reorientation of the methyl groups. For the glassy nematic state, as well as for the phases observed after reheating a quenched sample, only methyl rotation is observed. The correlation times of these various mechanisms were determined and the results compared with those obtained by previous NMR and dielectric analysis.