Studies on binary mixtures of nematic liquid crystals made of strongly polar molecules with identical cores and antagonistic orientation of permanent dipoles

We report experimental studies on optical (birefringence, Δn), dielectric (Δε) and bend-splay elastic anisotropies (ΔK = K33 − K11) of a few mixtures of two nematic liquid crystals, namely CCH-7 and CCN-47, made of highly polar molecules with identical cores and antagonistic orientation of permanent dipoles. In particular, the polar group (-CN) attached to the bicyclohexane core of CCH-7 is oriented along the longitudinal direction whereas, in CCN-47, it is oriented along the transverse direction. We show that apart from the significant contribution to the optical and dielectric anisotropies, the antagonistic orientation of strongly polar groups plays a crucial role in determining the bend-splay elastic anisotropy. The elastic properties are explained based on a model proposed by Priest, considering the effect of intermolecular association and the resulting length-to-width ratio of the molecules. •Binary mixtures of positive and negative dielectric anisotropy liquid crystals.•Antagonistic orientation of dipoles tends to cancels out their effect.•Antiparallel association increases effective length-to-width ratio of the molecules.•Orientation of dipole moments determines the elastic anisotropy of liquid crystals.