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.