Electrooptic effects in the nematic and isotropic phases of aqueous V2O5 suspensions

In water-based lyotropic liquid crystals (LCs), e.g., aqueous suspensions o f V2O5, the electrooptical effects typical of thermotropic mesophases are d ifficult to observe, owing to the large conductivity and electrochemical re actions of the suspensions. Overcoming these difficulties, the authors demo nstrate that V2O5 aqueous nematic suspensions can be aligned and even reori ented in a low AC electric field-in addition to the recently reported slow (30 min) alignment in magnetic fields. The response time of similar to 1 s indicates that mineral LCs may be suitable for simple display applications.