Synthesis and Evaluation of New Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals.

摘要

The goals of the research are to improve understanding of the correlation of molecular structure with physical properties of ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) phases; to test strategies for design of new materials; and to invent new FLC materials with properties suited for incorporation into high performance optoelectronic FLC devices. Ten new compounds representing six new compound classes were synthesized and characterized. All of the new materials possess the bicylohexyl core unit in combination with a chiral tail. Most of the new compounds show the orthogonal smectic B phase, though one class exhibits some interesting tilted smectics as the neat liquid. Mixing experiments, using a phenylbenzoate smectic C host material, indicate that polarization, viscosity, and electrooptic rise time values for the bicyclohexyl core compounds in the surface stabilized FLC cell are comparable to the same chiral tail on a biphenyl or phenylbenzoate cores. Thus, the bicyclohexyl core does not appear to give smectic C mixtures with low orientational viscosity, as is observed for nematics in the twisted nematic cell.