Investigation of dielectric behaviour in ferrofluid–ferroelectric liquid crystal nanocomposites

Abstract

We demonstrate here the frequency-bias-temperature-dependent dielectric studies of ferrofluid (FF) mixed ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs; SCE13 and Felix017/100). As a FF, cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (∼9 nm) synthesised through chemical co-precipitation were used in the study. In these FF–FLCs nanocomposites, a memory (dielectric) effect is observed at room temperature, which becomes more pronounced as the temperature tends towards the smectic C* (SmC*) to smectic A (SmA) phase transitions. Moreover, in addition to the memory effect, the observed enhanced dielectric constant (ϵ′) also reveals the importance of FF nanoparticles in the FLC matrix. We anticipate that, in current nanocomposites, the interaction of the AC field frequency response of FF nanoparticles with the dielectric response of FLCs could be the plausible reason for these observations.