The determination of the phase transition temperatures of a semifluorinated liquid crystalline biphenyl ester by impedance spectroscopy as an alternative method

Dielectric spectroscopy (DS) is a very powerful and important for better understanding of the molecular dynamics and relaxation phenomena in liquid crystals. The dielectric and impedance characteristics Ethyl 4-(7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,10-nonafluorodecyloxy)biphenyl-4′-carboxylate (ENBC) liquid crystal have been analyzed over the frequency range of 100 Hz to MHz in the temperature region from room temperature to 180 °C. The compound ENBC shows enantiotropic a smectic mesophase in a wide temperature range. The phase transition temperatures T (°C) of the liquid crystal ENBC, which were characterized by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), have been verified by the dielectric measurements and conductivity mechanisms of the ENBC. The activation energies for some selected angular frequencies have also been calculated.