Molecular reorientations in liquid crystals pentyloxybenzylidine hexylanilene (PBHA) and butyloxybenzylidine octylanilene (BBOA)

Molecular reorientational motions in undeuterated pentyloxybenzylidine hexylanilene (PBHA or 5O.6) and butyloxybenzylidine octylanilene (BBOA or 4O.8) as studied by the quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) technique in their different mesophases are reported. Models are built up in stages to account for the experimental elastic incoherent structure factor (EISF). It is found that there exist simultaneous reorientational motions of the chain group and the reorientational motions of the whole molecule around its molecular axis in the smectic- G, smectic- B, and smectic- C phases. In smectic- A and nematic phases, additional body axis fluctuations are found to exist in both 5O.6 and 4O.8 systems. The average amplitude of body axis fluctuations is found to be approximately 15 degrees and 25 degrees, respectively, in the smectic- A and nematic phases of 5O.6, and approximately 14 degrees and 29 degrees, respectively, in 4O.8.

Novel pulsed switched power supply for a fast field cycling NMR spectrometer

In this paper, we outline the operating principles of a pulsed switched power supply for a fast field-cycling nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. The power supply uses a variant of a four-quadrant chopper with a duty cycle that defines the average output current. With this topology only two semiconductors are necessary to drive hundreds of amperes with an output power of several kilowatts. The output current ripple has a well-defined shape that can be reduced to acceptable values by a careful design of the semiconductors' controlling circuits and drivers. A power supply prototype was tested with a home build air-core magnet operating with fields between 0 and 0.21 T. The system is computer controlled using pulse generator and data acquisition PC cards, and specific user-friendly home-developed software. A comparative proton relaxometry study in two well-known liquid crystal compounds 5CB and MBBA was performed to check the reproducibility of the T1 measurements.