ESTIMATES OF ELECTRON RANGE AND ION MOBILITY IN CHOLESTERYL OLEYL CARBONATE

An electron beam has been used as an ohmic contact to films of cholest eryl oleyl carbonate (COC). Incremental charging experiments show that the injected electrons propagate some tens of microns before becoming trapped to form stable, negative molecular ions. Although these ions approximately follow Walden's rule the magnitude of the ion mobility i s lower than one would predict from the viscosity, and this is taken a s evidence that the ions are accompanied by a molecular cluster. There is evidence of an abrupt increase in ion mobility near the cholesteri c-to-isotropic liquid transition.