Tomylko S. Dielectric, electrooptical and structural peculiarities of liquid crystals with carbon nanotubes.

This work studied effect of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on dielectric, electrooptical and structural peculiarities of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) and chiral nematic liquid crystals (NLCs*). According to results of dielectric spectroscopy, several types of changes of electrical conductivity  with CNT concentration CNT can be distinguished, namely, linear growth, saturation and two-step increase of percolation character. These stages are in good agreement with the changes of structure of CNTs. When studying the electrooptic features of NLC–CNT composites, main attention was focused on the interpretation and enhancement of the effect of electrooptical memory. It is further shown that the addition of organomodified laponite nanoplatelets to the NLC–CNT suspensions leads to a dramatic improvement in the dispersion of CNTs. It causes a linear dependence of the (CNT) curve and absence of its percolation behavior. The dielectric properties and electro-optic response of NLC suspensions of nanoparticles of diamond (NPD), i.e., different from CNTs allotropic form of carbon, have been studied. Unlike the case of CNTs, electrical percolation did not clearly manifest itself in these suspensions. The effect of ionic purification and stabilization of NLCs by NPD was discovered.