Effect of Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles on Dielectric and Optical Properties of Nematic Liquid Crystal

In the present paper, we have studied the improvement in dielectric and optical properties of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) by doping of nickel oxide (NiO) nanoparticles. We have observed the dielectric and optical properties of pure and doped cells in order to understand the influence of NiO nanoparticles in the pure NLC. The experimental results have been analyzed through dielectric spectroscopic and optical texural methods. Detailed studies of dielectric parameters such as dielectric permittivity, dielectric loss and dielectric loss factor as a function of frequency with temperature were carried out. It has been observed that on doping the nanoparticles in NLC, the value of dielectric parameters (dielectric permittivity, dielectric loss and dielectric loss factor) decreases. The impedance and resistance of both pure and nanoparticles doped NLC cells were studied and found that for doped NLC, these parameter have low value. In addition to this, optical textures of the pure and doped samples have also been observed with a polarizing optical microscope at room temperature. All the results i.e. related to the investigation of dielectric and electro-optic properties have been explained by using existing theory of NLC