We present a pioneering theoretical model to predict the phase behavior of carbon nanotubes dispersed in thermotropic liquid crystals by combining Doi free energy for carbon nanotubes with Landau-de Gennes free energy for nematic order of low molar mass liquid crystal. The interaction term between carbon nanotubes and liquid crystal molecules is considered. The phase behavior of the binary mixture depending on the volume fraction of nanotubes, the strength of the interaction, and temperature is analyzed in detail. Our theory well describes all relevant available experimental measurements.
COBISS.SI-ID: 15940616
We studied theoretically the combined impact of static and dynamic disorder on the phenomenon of stochastic resonance (SR) in perturbed ferroelectric liquid crystal cell, which is a typical soft matter representative. We generalize derived equations further in order to study the impact of a broader class of qualitatively different origins of disorder. We determine the required conditions for the observation of SR in the examined system. We were the first to show that random field type disorder affects SR in qualitatively different manner in comparison to random bond disorder.
COBISS.SI-ID: 15940616