Transient Current Investigations in Ion Irradiated Liquid Crystalline Polyurethane

Abstract

Swift heavy ions (SHI) irradiation of Oxygen (O7+) beam with different ions fluence bring the modifications in the electrical conduction behavior of liquid crystalline Polyurethane (LCPU). The persent investigation carried out under different transientconditions in the operating temperature range of 50-220°C at various selectric fields of 4.35-43.45 kV/cm. The transient currents show thehyperbolic decay character and the decay exponent Δt (one-tenth decay time) dependent on the field and temperature. Theincrease in I0 /Isvalues (where I0 represents the current observe dimmediately after applying the voltage and Ismeans the steady state current) and the mobility variation at high operating temperatures shows the appearance of mesophase. The transient currents originated due to the dipolar nature of carbonyl(C＝O) groups in the main chain of LCPU and the trapping charge carriers.