Dynamic heterogeneity of a nanostructure in the hyper-swollen B4 phase of achiral bent-core molecules diluted with rod-like liquid crystals

Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University - Kita-Shirakawa, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan

Corresponding author: ytakanis@scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Received: 9 July 2009
Accepted: 10 November 2009

Abstract

We studied the dynamics in the chiral mesogenic phases observed in binary mixtures of 5CB and bent-core molecules by using dynamic light scattering. In the lower-temperature phase, a clear orientational fluctuation was observed, which was not observed in the higher-temperature one. The wave number dependence of the relaxation frequency strongly indicates that nanoscale phase separation occurs and that the fluctuations of 5CB with nematic order are suppressed by the bent-core–rich domains. The spatial heterogeneity of the nematic dynamic motion yields exact information on the characteristic size of the nanostructure, which cannot be obtained by static structural analysis.