Brownian motion of particles in nematic fluids

We studied the brownian motion of both charged and neutral polystyrene particles in two nematic fluids, a thermotropic liquid crystal, E7, and a lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal, Sunset Yellow FCF (SSY). Homogeneous planar alignment of E7 was easliy achieved by using rubbed polyimide film coated on the glass. For SSY planar mondomain, we used the capillary method recently developed in our lab. By tracking a single particle, the direction dependent diffussion coefficients and Stokes drag were measured in the nematic phase and isotropic phase for both systems.