¹Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
46 Nauky Avenue, 03028 Kyiv, Ukraine
²Frantsevich Institute for Problems in Materials Science, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
³Omeliana Pritsaka Street, 03142 Kyiv, Ukraine
Corresponding author e-mail: eugene.a.eliseev@gmail.com^*, anna.n.morozovska@gmail.com^**

Abstract. We reveal an apparent influence of ultra-small concentrations (1 wt.% or less) of BaTiO3 nanoparticles (average size of 24 nm) on the current-voltage characteristics and capacitance of dielectric liquid crystal (LC) 5CB. A pure LC cell demonstrates higher current (and, hence, smaller resistance) as compared to LC cells filled with very small concentrations (0.5 and 1 wt.%) of BaTiO3 nanoparticles. The same trend is observed for the charge-voltage characteristics: the capacitance loop is the widest for the pure LC cell and becomes noticeably thinner in the presence of 0.5 and 1 wt.% of BaTiO3 nanoparticles. This seems counterintuitive, because 1 wt.% of ferroelectric nanoparticles modify the effective dielectric response very slightly and therefore should not influence on the director distribution and elastic properties of the LC. We conclude that a possible physical reason of this observation is the influence on the ionic transport in the LC of the ionic-electronic screening charges, which cover the ferroelectric nanoparticles and become polarized in an external field.

Keywords: dielectric liquid crystal, ferroelectric nanoparticles, BaTiO3 nanoparticles, current-voltage characteristics, ionic transport.

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