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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Pretransitional behavior in the isotropic phase of a nematic liquid crystal with the transverse permanent dipole
Malgorzata Janik1, Sylwester J Rzoska, Aleksandra Drozd-Rzoska
1Institute of Physics, Silesian University, ul. Uniwersytecka 4, 40-007 Katowice, Poland.
Abstract:
The results presented give the evidence for the quasicritical, pretransitional behavior of dielectric properties in the isotropic phase of a rodlike nematic liquid crystal with the transverse permanent dipole moment. Studies were conducted in 2-cyano-4-pentylbiphenyl 4-(trans-4-pentylcyclohexyl) benzoate, focusing on the static-and ionic-dominated low-frequency (LF) regions. For the static dielectric permittivity [epsilon(')(T)] the application of the derivative analysis revealed the pretransitional anomaly associated with the specific heat exponent alpha approximately 0.5. For the LF domain the contribution to epsilon(')(T) from residual ionic impurities follows a linear temperature dependence on approaching the isotropic-nematic (I-N) transition. This dependence and pretransitional anomalies of electric conductivity and dielectric modulus can be associated with the influence of prenematic fluctuations. "Linear" dielectric studies were supported by the static nonlinear dielectric effect measurements, which delivered reliable estimations of the temperature of the hypothetical continuous phase transition T(*) and the discontinuity of the I-N transition DeltaT approximately 1.7 K.
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