Estados críticos orientacionais em cristais líquidos liotrópicos induzidos por campos magnéticos. / Orientations critical states in lyotropic liquid crystals induced by magnetic fields.

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

19/12/2000

RESUMO

Liquid crystalline structures are found in materials made from molecules which are anisotropic in shape; such material are characterized mainly by a long range orientational order. In the nematic phase, the rodlike molecules tend to align parallel to each other. The average orientation defines a unit vector, called director n. Lyotropic liquid crystals are usually obtained by the dispersion of amphiphilic molecules in water. Due the fact that these molecules present a polar head and a non-polar tail, they tend to form aggregates with the polar part at the aggregate surface. This type of struc­ ture is present in all living being; the most classical example is the cell membrane. The existence of a boundary surface affects the properties of a material close to this boundary. This particularly true for liquid crystals, which are very sensitive to boundary conditions, even when weak. Indeed, this property is quite useful in the fabrication of electro-optic devices. One of the most obvious surface effect is the change in the molecules organization due to a breaking of the symmetry at the boundary surface. In the nematic phases, this microscopic effect results in the formation of a surface la yer with a positional order that extends through the bulk up to a certain distance from the surface. The other effect of the surface results in a change in the orientational state of the molecules in the volume due to the sur face forces. This macroscopic effect is known as anchoring. In the absence of any external field or boundary conditions, all molecular orientation is equally probable. In this work, we will present some results of the investigation of the properties of lyotropic liquid crystals at the interface with a solid substrate. We have studied the dy­ namic of the surface layer when a applied magnetic field induces a reorientation of the nematic director. In this study different systems were used: lyotropic liquid crystals in the nematic phase, ferronematics (nematic phase doped with ferrofluid) and filled nematics (nematic phase doped with silica nano-spheres). By means of transmittance measurements.

ASSUNTO(S)

cristais líquidos liotrópicos dinâmica dynamic equilibrium states ferrofluídos ferrofluids lyotropic liquid crystals nanosfera de sio2. sio2 nanosphere. estados de equilíbrio

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