Determination of Thermo Optical Parameters Using Image Analysis Technique in nBA: 7HB Hydrogen Bonded Liquid Crystals

Abstract

In this paper, thermo optical properties of homologous series of hydrogen bonded liquid crystals: p-n alkyl benzoic acid (nBA): heptyl p -hydroxybenzoate (7HB) (where n=5 to 10) have been investigated by means of applying Image analysis technique in conjunction with Polarizing Optical Microscope. Textures of liquid crystal complexes are captured. The changes in textural features as a function of temperature are useful to compute the thermo optical properties. These microscopic textures are analysed using MATLAB software. The investigated thermo optical parameters are optical transmission, Absorption coefficient, Phase retardation, birefringence and order parameter. Experimentally, this is a simple technique to observe the behaviour of the optical parameters of different liquid crystals as a function of temperature.