Anomalous selective reflection in cholesteryl oleyl carbonate – nematic 5CB mixtures and effects of their doping by single-walled carbon nanotubes
Liquid crystalline (LC) mixtures of cholesteryl oleyl carbonate (COC) and 4-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) as well as dispersions of single-walled carbon nanotubes (NTs) in these mixtures were studied by means of selective reflection measurements, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
and optical microscopy. The relative mass of COC in a mixture X was varied between 0.4 and 1.0, the temperature range of measurements was between 284 and 314 K, and concentration of NTs was fixed at 0.1%. Two important anomalies were noted: (1) the cholesteric to smectic-A transition
temperature increased on dilution of COC by non-smectogenic 5CB in the concentration range 0.8 < X < 1 and (2) the reciprocal pitch versus 5CB concentration dependence was essentially linear, in contrast to behaviour commonly observed in nematic-cholesteric
mixtures. A model of molecular arrangement in the mixtures, accounting for the possibility of integration of 5CB dimers and monomers between COC molecules and presumably explaining the experimental data, was proposed. The helical pitch of the cholesteric mixtures remained practically unchanged
upon doping by NTs, and only slight widening of the selective reflection peaks was noted. The obtained results allow considering the COC + 5CB mixtures as promising matrices for composite materials on the basis of liquid crystals and NTs.
Keywords: 5CB; carbon nanotubes; cholesteric; cholesteryl oleyl carbonate; liquid crystal; selective reflection
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Institute for Biocolloidal Chemistry, NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine 2: Institute for Scintillation Materials of STC ‘Institute for Single Crystals’, NAS of Ukraine, Kharkov, Ukraine 3: Institute of Physics, NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
Publication date: 01 July 2013
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