Properties of non-symmetric bent-core liquid crystals with variable flexible chain length

Katalin Fodor-Csorba ,Michal Kohout ,Martin Chambers ¹,Aniko Vajda ,Giancarlo Galli ²,Attila Domján ³,Jiří Svoboda ,Alexey Bubnov ⁴,Antal Jákli ¹
Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1525 Budapest, H-1525, P.O. Box 49, Hungary Institute of Chemical Technology, CZ-16628 Prague, Czech Republic ¹Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent OH44240, USA ²Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy ³Chemical Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Chemical Institute, P.O. Box 17, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary ⁴Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Na Slovance 2, 18221. Prague, Czech Republic
1. Abstract New non-symmetrical bent core mesogens with a variable flexible chain length have been synthesized. The compounds were derived from 3-hydroxybenzoic acid, which is the central unit of the molecules. The tails on both ends were connected by ester functionality, one tail contains a terminal double bond and the other one is saturated. The compounds represent novel non-symmetric molecules both in their core and tails. The main features of DSC, polarizing optical microscopy, electro-optical and polarization current measurements for all studied materials indicate a transition between single tilted synclinic ferroelectric and an antiferroelectric smectic phases. However details show important deviations from the simplest picture, which will be the subject of future X-ray studies.

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