Static Dielectric Properties of Nematics

S. Urban, Static dielectric properties of nematics, in Physical Properties of Liquid Crystals Nematics, D. A. Dunmur, A. Fukuda, and G. R. Luckhurst Eds. lEE, London, 2001, pp. 267-276, and references therein. 

Static dielectric properties of nematics TYPICAL EXAMPLES... 

The most important coupling to deformations of the network is the one that is linear in both the strain of the network and the nematic order parameter. As has been discussed earlier in this section this leads to the consequence that the strain tensor can be used as an order parameter for the nematic-isotropic transition in nematic sidechain elastomers, just as the dielectric or the diamagnetic tensor are used as macroscopic order parameters to characterize this phase transition in low molecular weight materials. But it has also been stressed that nonlinear elastic effects as well as nonlinear coupling terms between the nematic order parameter and the strain tensor must be taken into account as soon as effects that are nonlinear in the nematic order parameter are studied [4, 25]. So far, no deviation from classical mean field behavior concerning the critical exponents has been detected in the static properties of this transition and correspondingly there are no reports as yet discussing static critical fluctuations. 

Maier and Meier [35] worked out these ideas more quantitatively by applying Onsager s theory of static polarization for nematic liquid crystals. The Onsager theory relates the dielectric constant to molecular properties, namely the molecular polarizability a and the permanent electrical dipole moment /i. In the case of nematic liquid crystals, however, the polarizability has to be treated as a tensor with principal values an and a and an angle ]8 has to be introduced to describe the... 

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