Abstracto

Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystalline nature of berberine in orthophosphoric acid

T.N.Govindaiah, H.R.Sreepad, H.P.Nirmala, Nagappa

We report the results of our studies on the optical and thermal properties of the mixture of two non-mesogenic compounds viz., Berberine (BBE) and OrthophosphoricAcid (H3PO4). Themixture exhibits very interesting induced smectic phases, such as SmA, SmC* and SmE phases for different concentrations of BBE sequentially when the specimen is cooled from its isotropic phase. Different liquid crystalline phases observed in these mixtures were studied using DSC, X-ray and Optical microscopic techniques. The temperature variation of optical anisotropy has also been discussed. Helfrich potential and Elastic moduli have been estimated in the smectic phase using Helfrich model.