Effects of morphology and concentration of CuS nanoparticles on alignment and electro-optic properties of nematic liquid crystal

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Bin Liu ; Yiran Ma ; Dongyu Zhao ; Lihong Xu ; Fashun Liu ; Wei Zhou ; Lin Guo
• 关键词：liquid crystal ; CuS nanoparticles ; vertical alignment ; electro ; optic properties
• 刊名：Nano Research
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：10
• 期：2
• 页码：618-625
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Chemistry and Materials Science
• 刊物主题：Nanotechnology; Materials Science, general; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Condensed Matter Physics; Biotechnology; Biomedicine, general;
• 出版者：Tsinghua University Press
• ISSN：1998-0000
• 卷排序：10

文摘

Nanoparticles (NPs) with flower-like and frame morphologies were synthesized from CuS, a remarkable transition-metal sulfide. We introduced two kinds of CuS NPs into a nematic liquid crystal (LC) 4-cyano-4'-n-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) and investigated the morphology- and concentration-dependent alignment and electro-optic (E-O) effects of CuS NPs on 5CB. A trace amount of flower-like CuS NPs induced a uniform homeotropic orientation of LC molecules; this is attributable to the obtained desirable compact nanosheet structure. Moreover, both flower-like and frame CuS NPs induced a remarkable improvement in the E-O properties of 5CB, and the flower-like CuS/5CB system exhibited a better performance. The doped CuS NPs in the LC host suppressed the shielding effect and strengthened the electric field, resulting in outstanding E-O properties. At a doping concentration of 0.05 wt.%, CuS NPs were well-dispersed and achieved the optimum E-O performance. This study provides a novel method for inducing a uniform orientation and enhanced E-O properties of LC molecules by doping with extraordinary CuS NPs, leading to potential applications in establishing flexible LC displays.