Nematic electroclinic effect in a carbon-nanotube-doped achiral liquid crystal

A small quantity of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) dispersed in an achiral liquid crystal (LC) matrix transmits chirality a short distance into the LC, and the LC+CNT mixture is found to exhibit a bulklike electroclinic effect in the nematic phase. The magnitude of the effect increases rapidly on cooling, showing significant pretransitional behavior on approaching the nematic-smectic-A transition temperature (TNA) from above. The variation of the electroclinic coefficient is negligible over the frequency range 100 Hz to 100 kHz in the in the nematic phase well above T-NA and in the smectic-A phase, whereas the electroclinic coefficient falls off significantly with increasing frequency just above T-NA.