Influence of aminated graphene nanosheets on electro-optical performance and nonlinear optical properties of nematic liquid crystal

In this research, aminated graphene (AMG) nanosheets with different compositional percentages have been dispersed in nematic liquid crystal (NLC) E7 with special initial ordering including homogeneous (HA) and vertical (VA) alignment orientations. Doping of AMG nanosheets into E7 can improve their electro-optical properties considerably. First of all, some analyzes of AMG nanosheets such as TEM, SEM, XRD, Raman, FTIR and Zeta potential were investigated to guarantee their quality. Then the dielectric anisotropy (De) of the NLC and doped ones with AMG was studied in different temperatures in details. Further, it has been found that due to dispersion of AMG, the threshold voltage (Vth) of prepared cells is reduced by up to 17% when compared to E7 nematic cells due to the reduced splay elastic constant (K11), as well as increased De, in the mixtures of NLCs. Also, according to the findings, nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of NLC were strongly affected by doping with AMG nanosheets that were examined through the Z-scan method using the laser beam at 632.8 nm wavelength. Doping significantly increases the NLO responses of NLC, which reaches up to 96.79 x10-7(cm2/W) and 58.5 x10-2(cm/W) for 0.1 %wt doped one in VA for nonlinear refraction (n2) and absorption (b) coefficients, respectively. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.