Enhancement in electro-optical parameters of nematic liquid crystalline material with SWCNTs

Abstract Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were dispersed in the nematic matrix of a room temperature pristine liquid crystalline material. Thermodynamic, electro-optical and dielectric parameters of nematic host dispersed with SWCNTs were investigated. The alignment and reorientation of SWCNTs with external electric field in nematic matrix were also studied. The inclusion of SWCNTs changes the physical parameters such as transition temperature, switching threshold voltage, orientational order, dielectric anisotropy, splay elastic constants and activation energy of host nematic liquid crystal. The switching threshold voltage reduces and the steepness of the transmission voltage curve improves for the composite systems. This shows that dispersion of SWCNTs enhances the orientational order of nematic liquid crystals media. Consequently overall improvements were observed for the display parameters of dispersed systems.