Colossal Permittivity in Ferrogenic Nematic LCs.

Colossal Permittivity in Ferrogenic Nematic LCs.

Yuri Panarin^1,2, Rahul Uttam², and Jagdish Vij²;

¹Dept of Electrical and Electronic Eng., TU Dublin, Ireland; ²Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng., Trinity College Dublin, Ireland;

The long-awaited ferroelectric nematic LCs (NF) predicted more long time ago were finally discovered in 2017, independently in two different materials: RM 734 and DIO. However, the presence of spontaneous polarization did not offer any advantage for display technology. Recently we observed the colossal dielectric permittivity (CP) in non-ferroelectric materials with high dipole moment > 10 D [1]. Such permittivity exists not only in LC phases materials even in isotropic phase and was also observed in [2]. Therefore, the colossal permittivity is a property of extremely high dipole moment itself but not specific phase. Here we report the existence of such CP mode in ferroelectric materials; mixtures of WJ-16 (Hull, UK) with DIO and individual component SA-153 (Belfast, UK). Both materials show three relaxation processes, where lowest frequency process P0 is ionic mobility mode, the mid-frequency process P1 shows colossal permittivity (>= 10000) and exists in all phases including the isotropic and the last one P2 shows is typical para– ferroelectric transition. The relaxation process P1 was called as superparaelectric [1] but it exists in all phases/temperatures, so the better name is “hi-permittivity” or “hyper permittivity” mode [3]. This mode opens a new range of applications of ferrogenic liquid crystals as the working media for supercapacitors with the potential of using them in energy storage devices.

References:

[1] Yu. Panarin et al, J. Mater. Chem. C, 13, 1507 (2025). DOI: 10.1039/d4tc03561e

[2] H. Nishikawa et al., Adv. Mater. 29, 1702354 (2017).

[3] R. Uttam et al, J. Mater. Chem. C, (2026). DOI: 10.1039/d6tc00004e