Study on the Memory Effect in Aerosil-Filled Nematic Liquid Crystal Doped with Magnetic Nanoparticles.

A study on 5CB liquid crystal composites with SiO 2 nanoparticles and an additional commixture with Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles using light transmission and SAW measurements is presented. The prepared liquid crystal composites exhibited an interesting memory effect characterized by the hysteresis of both light transmission and SAW attenuation responses investigated in the nematic phase. While in the case of SiO 2 nanoparticles as dopants, the liquid crystal composite showed an improvement in the memory effect, the addition of Fe 3 O 4 magnetic nanoparticles resulted in the memory effect decreasing. Additional studies showed a significant shift in both the threshold voltage and nematic-isotropic transition temperature. Measurements in the magnetic field confirmed the increasing memory effect according to that of pure 5CB. The properties of these composites could lead to a potential application for the fabrication of memory devices suitable for information storage.