Polar nature of the ferro-electric nematic studied by dielectric spectroscopy

The nematic-nematic transitions in a nematic compound DIO are studied in homogeneously planar and homeotropic aligned cells using dielectric spectroscopy in the frequency range 0.1 Hz to 10 MHz over a wide range of temperatures. Three relaxation processes are identified in this material. All the three relaxation processes show large jumps in the dielectric strength and discontinuity in frequency at the NX to NF transition, indicative of it being a first order phase transition. Unlike a conventional nematic liquid crystalline material that usually shows molecular relaxation processes at higher frequencies, this material shows three processes at relatively lower frequencies. The three processes are found to be collective in nature. The least frequency process is proven to be due to the conductivity of ions in the medium and due to the accumulation of charge at the alignment layers unlike mistakenly reported in the literature otherwise. The mode at the highest frequency is proven to be due to the ferroelectric domains in the NF phase. This is evidenced by its dielectric strength two orders of magnitude higher in a homeotropic aligned cell than planar aligned cell. Its mechanism is soft mode like in the N phase. The intermediate frequency mode is proven to be due to the correlation of molecules of the medium as is normally observed in liquid crystalline cybotactic clusters.