Enhanced Flexoelectric Anisotropy of Nematic Liquid Crystal with Hydrogen-Bonded Dimer

We synthesized 4-[7(4'-Cyanobiphenyl-4-yl)hexyloxy]bezoic acid (CBO7OBA) utilized as liquid crystal (LC) dopant. The CBO7OBA molecules form dimers with hydrogen bonding between molecules. We enhanced significantly the flexoelectric anisotropy of nematic LC mixture only with the small amount of doping of CBO7OBA. The flexoelectric anisotropy of mixtures of T04 (JNC) and ZSM50089 (JNC) doped with CBO7OBA molecules was enhanced 1.42 and 2.67 times compared with pure nematic LC, respectively. Moreover, we investigate the dependence of flexoelectric current on the bending effect of the virtual device. The flexoelectric current improved by about 2.9 times compared with pure LC due to the increase of the dipole moment and the bent- core structure of the dimer.