New nonlinear dielectric materials: linear electrorheological fluids under the influence of electrostriction

The usual approach to the development of new nonlinear dielectric materials focuses on the search for materials in which the components possess an inherently large nonlinear dielectric response. In contrast, based on thermodynamics, we have presented a first-principles approach to obtain the electrostriction-induced effective third-order nonlinear susceptibility for electrorheological (ER) fluids in which the components have inherent linear, rather than nonlinear, responses. In detail, this kind of nonlinear susceptibility is in general of about the same order of magnitude as the compressibility of the linear ER fluid at constant pressure. Moreover, our approach has been demonstrated to be in excellent agreement with a different statistical method. Thus, such linear ER fluids can serve as a new nonlinear dielectric material.