title: Soft memory in a ferroelectric nanoparticle-doped liquid crystal.
abstract: A small quantity of BaTiO(3) ferroelectric nanoparticles (FNP) was doped in a liquid crystal (LC), and the LC + FNP hybrid was found to exhibit a nonvolatile electromechanical memory effect in the isotropic phase. The permanent dipole moment of the FNPs causes the LC molecule to form short-range pseudonematic domains surrounding the FNPs. The FNP-induced short-range orders become more prominent in the isotropic phase when the global nematic order is absent. These short-range domains, being anisotropic in nature, interact with an external electric field, exhibiting a Fréedericksz-type transition. When the field is turned off, these domains stay oriented, showing a hysteresis effect due to the absence of any long-range order and restoring forces in the isotropic phase. The hysteresis graph for this memory effect shows a significant pretransitional behavior on approaching the nematic phase from the isotropic phase.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Soft-matter and Nanomaterials Laboratory, The United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland 21402, USA.
authors.forename: Rajratan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Basu
mesh_terms: D017609:Barium Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D059346:Magnets; D008422:Materials Testing; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D044367:Phase Transition; D014025:Titanium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D017609:Barium Compounds; C024547:barium titanate(IV); D014025:Titanium