This work investigates time-evolved ionic characteristics of a homogeneously aligned cell composed of a low-resistivity nematic liquid crystal. The influence of montmorillonite as a nanoadditive is studied on the dielectric spectrum of the cell. The incorporation of the inorganic nanoplatelets into the nematic leads to decrease in conductivity in the frequency range from 10 Hz to at least 10 kHz. The dielectric spectroscopic results show that the conductivity, ionic concentration, and diffusion constant of both undoped and doped cells are strongly time-dependent after the cell fabrication.

The ionic properties of liquid crystals doped with one-dimensional carbon nanotubes, two-dimensional montmorillonite, and a mixture of both are investigated. The results indicate that the relaxation times of electrode polarization and ionic conductivity are time-dependent after the cell fabrication regardless of doping. While all of the dopants are effective in capturing impurity ions, the cells containing the hybrid dopant exhibit the feeblest ionic effect at room temperature.

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