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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Binary System Exhibiting the Nematic to Twist-Bend Nematic Transition: Behavior of Permittivity and Elastic Constants
Srividhya Parthasarathi1, D S Shankar Rao1, Nani Babu Palakurthy1
1Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences , Bengaluru 560013, India.
Abstract:
We describe measurements of the permittivity and Frank elastic constant in the nematic phase of a binary system displaying a transition between the nematic (N) and the recently discovered twist-bend nematic (NTB) phase. Among the salient features observed are (i) the existence of the NTB phase even when the system is loaded with a high concentration (∼64 mol %) of a rodlike component; (ii) a clear signature in permittivity of the N-NTB transition; and (iii) a lower value of the bend elastic constant compared to the splay over a large phase space, with the difference between the two becoming a maximum for an intermediate mixture. These studies further support the surprising idea that the elastic features associated with bent molecules can be further augmented by suitable rodlike additives.
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