Doping process of liquid crystals (LCs) can prepare novel materials
that can have very interesting properties which are absent in original
LC substances. LC suspensions containing nanoparticles have registered
additional great attention for many practical applications such as
nanosensors, liquid crystal display industry, optical processing, biosensors,
photonics and magneto-optics. New applications are in need of
new materials with exotic properties and new technologies [1]. It is
already known that ferroelectric particles have the strong effect on
optical and dielectric properties of the nematic matrix. The increase of
birefringence and dielectric anisotropy of the nematic matrix by the
particles is caused by a giant dipole moment of ferroparticles that
change the intermolecular interaction in the LC matrix and give a direct
contribution to the value of effective dielectric constants of the matrix.
Introduction of the particles leads also to the decrease of driving
voltages, increase of the reflection contrast and the steepness of the
transition [2]. Carbon-based nanostructured materials and their relationship
with liquid crystals (LCs) are another topic in current
research. It is worth mentioning the recently described connection
between graphene oxide and liquid crystals [3] as well as the highly
active topic of LC structures doped with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and
the possibility of reorienting them with external fields [4]