Direct current electric conductivity of ferroelectric liquid crystals–gold nanoparticles dispersion measured with capacitive current technique.

The influence of capped gold nanospheres (GNSs) on the direct current (DC) electric conductivity ( σ D C ) of a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) confined in a cell with blocking electrodes was experimentally investigated. In framework of this work, several measurement techniques of σ D C , such as dielectric and conductivity spectroscopies, were utilised. However, it was demonstrated that only the capacitive technique allowed estimating values of σ D C of both pure FLC and FLC/GNSs nanodispersion confined in the cell with blocking electrodes. The experimental results confirm the assumption that the gold nanoparticles adsorb the impurities' ions in FLC which leads to the decrease in the conductivity of the FLC layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]