It is well known that doping nematic liquid crystals with nanoparticles can alter the electrooptic response of the nematic
host as well as the alignment of the liquid crystal molecules on various substrates. In addition, nanoparticles dispersed in
a nematic matrix often induce defects and defect patterns justifying the necessity for more detailed optical and electrooptic
investigations including effects of nanoparticle size, coating, concentration and core material. We studied the local
alignment of nematic LC molecules in such dispersions by means of fluorescence confocal polarizing microscopy. The
results of two- and three-dimensional imaging indicate that frequently observed birefringent stripes, which are induced
by the presence of metal nanoparticles and semiconductor quantum dots, correspond to twist disclinations located at the
LC/substrate interface. The luminescence of dispersed quantum dots shows that the ends of these disclination threads are
pinned to conglomerates of nanoparticles that stabilize these line defects. By performing (x,z)-scans, it can be shown that
the defects are not walls extending through the entire cell gap, but lines that are located at the substrate surface. Our
experiments also confirm, as hypothesized before, that the nanoparticles preferably reside at the liquid crystal/substrate
interfaces. Finally, detailed electrooptic investigations also revealed that a contrast inversion observed earlier is initiated
by a change from parallel to homeotropic anchoring, thereby causing an instability, which in turn leads to the appearance
of convection rolls (Kapustin-Williams domains). This electrohydrodynamic instability is likely an example for the
behavior of (+, -) systems predicted by de Gennes, which was only recently experimentally observed for the first time.
To capitalize on the unique size and shape-dependent optical and electronic properties of nanoscale particles for liquid
crystal (LC) applications, detailed structure and size-property relationship studies are critical. To enhance our understanding of the thermal, optical and electro-optic effects of nanoparticles in nematic LCs we produced numerous different nematic LC mixtures containing small quantities of dispersed metal nanoparticles (i.e. gold and silver nanoclusters) or semiconductor quantum dots (i.e. CdTe nanocrystals) and studied their optical (texture, alignment, defect formation, luminescence) and electro-optic properties. Depending on several experimental parameters such as nanoparticle functionalization and concentration, as well as thermal history in combination with an applied electric field, these nanoparticle/LC mixtures with the nanoparticles differing in surface functionality, size, and core material gave rise to unique alignment effects and electro-optic responses in the two investigated nematic LC (N-LC) hosts.
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