Soft memory in a ferroelectric nanoparticle-doped liquid crystal.

A small quantity of BaTiO(3) ferroelectric nanoparticles (FNP) was doped in a liquid crystal (LC), and the LC + FNP hybrid was found to exhibit a nonvolatile electromechanical memory effect in the isotropic phase. The permanent dipole moment of the FNPs causes the LC molecule to form short-range pseudonematic domains surrounding the FNPs. The FNP-induced short-range orders become more prominent in the isotropic phase when the global nematic order is absent. These short-range domains, being anisotropic in nature, interact with an external electric field, exhibiting a Fréedericksz-type transition. When the field is turned off, these domains stay oriented, showing a hysteresis effect due to the absence of any long-range order and restoring forces in the isotropic phase. The hysteresis graph for this memory effect shows a significant pretransitional behavior on approaching the nematic phase from the isotropic phase.