Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 13, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Disentangling the secondary relaxations in the orientationally disordered mixed crystals: cycloheptanol +
Julio C Martínez-García1, Josep Ll Tamarit, Luis C Pardo
1Group de Caracterització de Materials, Department de Física I Enginyeria Nuclear, ETSEIB, Diagonal 647, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Abstract:
The dynamics of the pure compounds and mixed crystals formed between cycloheptanol (cC7-ol) and cyclooctanol (cC8-ol) has been studied by means of broadband dielectric spectroscopy at temperatures near and above the orientational glass transition temperature. Both compounds are known to display at least one orientationally disordered (OD) phase of simple cubic symmetry, and within this phase, a continuous formation of mixed crystals was demonstrated in the past (Rute, M. A. et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2003, 107, 5914). The dielectric loss spectra of cC7-ol and cC8-ol show, in addition to the well-pronounced alpha-relaxation peaks with a continuous temperature shift (characteristic of the freezing of the molecular dynamics), secondary relaxations (beta and gamma for cC8-ol and gamma for cC7-ol) which are intramolecular in nature. The dynamics of several OD mixed crystals was recently studied (Singh, L. P.; Murthy, S. S. N. J. Phys. Chem. B 2008, 112, 2606), and surprisingly enough one of the secondary relaxations was not evidenced. We show here by means of a careful set of measurements for several mixed crystals and of a detailed analysis procedure the existence of the secondary relaxations for the mixed crystals. The results, moreover, doubtless reinforce the physical origin of each of the secondary relaxations.
Related Concept Videos
Conformations of Cyclohexane
The chair form is the most stable and derives its name from its resemblance to the “easy chair.” In the chair conformation, two carbon atoms are arranged out-of-plane — one above and one below, minimizing the torsional strain. In the chair form, the bond angle is very close to the ideal tetrahedral value,...
Chair Conformation of Cyclohexane
The hydrogen atoms linked to carbons are arranged in two different axial and equatorial orientations to achieve this staggered...
Conformations of Cycloalkanes
Stereoisomerism of Cyclic Compounds
Stability of Substituted Cyclohexanes
The two chair conformations of cyclohexanes undergo rapid interconversion at room temperature. Both forms have identical energies and stabilities, each comprising equal amounts of the equilibrium mixture. Replacing a hydrogen atom with a functional group makes the two conformations energetically non-equivalent.
For example, in...
Disubstituted Cyclohexanes: cis-trans Isomerism
In cyclohexane, the substituents can occupy different positions generating distinct isomers.

