Dielectric spectroscopy studies of silver nanorod doped nematic liquid crystal

Abstract

Dielectric spectroscopy provides information on molecular dynamics as well as on important material parameters such as the static dielectric permittivity (ε) and DC electrical conductivity (σ) of the bulk as well as at the interfaces. In this study, we present the dielectric spectroscopy results of silver nanorod doped nematic liquid crystal (NLC) in the frequency range of 20 Hz to 10 MHz. The relaxation frequencies tend to increase owing to the availability of free volume due to addition of nanorods. However, the conductivity (at 1 kHz) is observed to decrease with the increase in the nanorod concentration until aggregation of nanorods is observed in the NLC host. Dielectric strength of doped NLC samples also increases with increasing concentration of nanorods.