Theory of Ferroelectric Nanoparticles in Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

Recent experiments have reported that ferroelectric nanoparticles have drastic effects on nematic liquid crystals--increasing the isotropic-nematic transition temperature by about 5 K, and greatly increasing the sensitivity to applied electric fields. To understand these effects, we develop a theory for the statistical mechanics of ferroelectric nanoparticles in liquid crystals. This theory predicts the enhancements of liquid-crystal properties, in good agreement with experiments. These predictions apply even when electrostatic interactions are partially screened by moderate concentrations of ions.

arXiv comment4 pages, including 4 postscript figures, uses REVTeX 4

References in corpus (2)

• Elasticity-mediated self-organization and colloidal interactions of solid spheres with tangential anchoring in a nematic liquid crystal
• Orientational Coupling Amplification in Ferroelectric Nematic Colloids

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Transport of Particles in Liquid Crystals
• Maier-Saupe-type theory of ferroelectric nanoparticles in nematic liquid crystals
• Impact of BaTiO${}_3$ nanoparticles on phase transitions and dynamics in nematic liquid crystal - temperature and pressure studies
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• Electric Field Control of Three-Dimensional Vortex States in Core-Shell Ferroelectric Nanoparticles
• Impact of spherical nanoparticles on the nematic order parameter
• Enhancement of nematic order and global phase diagram of a lattice model for coupled nematic systems
• Effective models for nematic liquid crystals composites with ferromagnetic inclusions