DETERMINATION OF OPTICAL BIREFRINGENCE AND ORIENTATIONAL ORDER PARAMETER OF FOUR MEMBERS OF ALKYL CYANOBIPHENYLS USING HIGH RESOLUTION TEMPERATURE SCANNING TECHNIQUE

We report the measurements of birefringence as a function of temperature of a homologous series of alkyl cyanobiphenyls (nCB) liquid crystalline compounds by means of high resolution optical transmission method. The temperature dependence of the birefringence (Dn) were determined from the transmitted intensity data for wavelength l= 532nm. From the birefringence data, orientational order parameters () were determined using three parameter Haller’s extrapolation technique. The order parameter critical exponents b obtained in this way have values