Birefringence, permittivity, elasticity and rotational viscosity of ambient temperature, high birefringent nematic liquid crystal mixtures

Abstract

We prepared a few binary nematic liquid crystal mixtures with high birefringence ( at room temperature) and studied the temperature variation of physical properties. All the mixtures show a small, positive dielectric anisotropy and the parallel component of dielectric constant exhibits anomalous temperature dependence. Orientational order parameter, both splay, bend elastic constants and rotational viscosity are comparatively larger than conventional low birefringent liquid crystal mixtures. The figure of merit (FoM) of the mixtures are also calculated as a function of temperature and expected to be useful for various applications.

Keywords:

• nematic liquid crystal
• high birefringence
• viscoelasticity
• figure of merit

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge support from the DST (SR/NM/NS-134/2010) and CSIR (03(1207)/12/EMR-II) and DST PURSE. V. D acknowledges UGC for fellowship.