How Multiple Types of Nano-dopants Affect the Electrical Resistivity of Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystals are integral elements of tunable electro-optical components such as tunable filters, waveplates, and lenses critical to variety of applications. They include displays, imaging devices, reconfigurable antennas for space communications, tunable lasers, and sensors to name a few. All these applications require high resistivity liquid crystals. There are also uses for smart windows and optical shutters, which rely on low resistivity liquid crystals. Thus, the control over the resistivity of liquid crystals is important for existing and future applications. In this report, we will explore different ways to control the resistivity of molecular liquid crystals using several types of nanoparticles. We analyze the effect of several factors on the values of electrical resistivity including the type of nano-dopants, their size and concentration, the level of ionic contamination, and the simultaneous use of several types of nano-dopants. This way we can increase or decrease the resistivity of molecular liquid crystals by up to several (2-4) orders of magnitude. By introducing several types of nano-dopants, electrical resistivity can be tuned more efficiently by taking advantage of a greater number of parameters affecting its values.