We study experimentally the impact of spherical nanoparticles on the orientational order parameters of a host nematic liquid crystal. We use spherical core-shell quantum dots that are surface functionalized to promote homeotropic anchoring on their interface with the liquid crystal host. We show experimentally that the orientational order may be strongly affected by the presence of spherical nanoparticles even at low concentrations. The orientational order of the composite system is probed by means of polarized micro-Raman spectroscopy and by optical birefringence measurements as function of temperature and concentration. Our data show that the orientational order depends on the concentration in a nonlinear way, and the existence of a crossover concentration ${\chi }_c\approx 0.004\text{pw}$. It separates two different regimes exhibiting pure-liquid crystal like ($\chi <{\chi }_c$) and distorted-nematic ordering ($\chi >{\chi }_c$), respectively. In the latter phase the degree of ordering is lower with respect to the pure-liquid crystal nematic phase.

• Received 22 September 2017
• Revised 4 February 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.042701