Dielectric Spectroscopy of Nematic Liquid Crystal Confined in Random Porous Matrices

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe performed dielectric spectroscopy measurements to study dynamics of dielectrically active modes of nematic liquid crystals (LC) 5CB with polar molecules confined in silica porous glasses with average pore sizes of 1000 Å (volume fraction of pores 40%) and 100 Å (27%). In the nematic phase of bulk 5CB there is only one mechanism of dielectric relaxation: rotation of polar molecules around short molecular axis with relaxation time τ ∼10−8s. The spatial confinement and the existence of a highly developed interphase have a strong influence on dielectric properties of LC. We found that at temperatures about 30°C below the bulk melting point in both porous matrices the dielectric behavior of confined liquid crystal is very different from the behavior expected for solid state. The dielectric modes were not frozen in both porous matrices and we observed four well defined relaxational processes with relaxation times τ1 ∼ 10−1s, τ2 ∼10−5s, τ3 ∼10−8s (bulk like) and τ3 ∼10−9s. These four processes do not vanish even at temperatures corresponding to deep bulk isotropic phase. The relaxation time of the first process (slow) shows glass-like behavior in a wide temperature range below bulk melting point.