Shear-Thinning Characteristics of Nematic Liquid Crystals Doped with Nanoparticles

Abstract

This work investigated changes in the physical properties of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) upon doping with nanoparticles. Shear viscosity measurements demonstrated the shear-thinning of typical NLCs following the addition of small amounts of nanoparticles at approximately 1 wt. %. However, neither the birefringence nor the dielectric anisotropy was significantly affected at these levels of doping. The shear-thinning appears to result from the locally ordered alignment of the NLCs in the vicinity of the nanoparticles rather than from reductions in the bulk order parameters.

Size-Dependent Liquid Crystal Behavior of Graphene Oxides for Preparation of Highly Ordered Graphene-Based Films

“…However, when the concentration increased to 20 mg/mL, the viscosity decreased as the shear rate increased. Such viscosity change is known as shear thinning, which has been generally observed in nematic liquid crystal suspension [25]. For the L-GO suspension, clear shear-thinning behavior was observed even at the lowest concentration of 4 mg/mL, which suggested that L-GO suspensions could form the nematic liquid crystal phase at a much lower concentration than the GO suspension.…”

Reducing Intermolecular Friction Work: Preparation of Polyimide Films with Ultralow Dielectric Loss from MHz to THz Frequency

“…On this basis, liquid crystal molecules attracted our attention, whose intermolecular frictions significantly decreased to exhibit unique shear thinning phenomena during orientation. Inspired by liquid crystal molecules, it might be a feasible method to reduce intermolecular friction works of PI films by constructing liquid-crystal-like structures. − …”