| Liquid crystalline phases used as a solvent for nanoparticles provide new ways of nanoscale manipulation over the spatial organization of the particles. When elongated metal particles are suspended in a host nematic liquid crystals composed of rod-like molecules and characterized by an alignment of their long axes along a particular direction, the energetically preferred orientation for the nematic alignment can generate forces and torques on the particles that are not present in ordinaryliquids. The forces imposed on particles in a nematic liquid crystals can be used tomanipulate the particles and arrange them into unique and useful structures.In this thesis, the dynamics of a nanowire immersed in a nematic liquid crystal sandwiched between two parallel plates are studied by applying an equivalent capacitance approach used in electrostatics. A lower cut-off eigenfrequency for the oscillation of the nanowire is found and the lighter the mass, the larger the critical cell separation at which the cut-off frequency occurs is needed. A simulation of the dynamical process of the metal wires shows that the relaxation time is proportional toη/m in the small mass region, with a factor of 1.26×10-8s Poise/g . |
