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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
Orientational coupling amplification in ferroelectric nematic colloids
Fenghua Li1, Oleksandr Buchnev, Chae Il Cheon
1Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
Abstract:
We investigated the physical properties of low concentration ferroelectric nematic colloids, using calorimetry, optical methods, infrared spectroscopy, and capacitance studies. The resulting homogeneous colloids possess a significantly amplified nematic orientational coupling. We find that the nematic orientation coupling increases by approximately 10% for particle concentrations of 0.2%. A manifestation of the increased orientational order is that the clearing temperature of a nematic colloid increases by up to 40 degrees C compared to the pure liquid crystal host. A theoretical model is proposed in which the ferroelectric particles induce local dipoles whose effective interaction is proportional to the square of the orientational order parameter.
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