Design of siloxane liquid crystals forming a de Vries SmA* phase

• We designed and synthesized new SmA* liquid crystals with different molecular architectures based on the chiral mesogen MR11, which was unsubstituted, or attached at one end and at both ends of a trisiloxane segment in the monosubstituted MSi3-MR11 and disubstituted DSi3-MR11 siloxanes, respectively. We studied the critical divergence of the magnetic susceptibility by measurements of the induced tilt angle theta(ind) at the SmA*-SmC* transition. While all three SmA* liquid crystals presented a de Vries character, this was quite distinctive for DSi3-MR11 for which the critical exponent gamma = 1.87 was maximal. X-ray diffraction experiments confirmed that the SmA*-SmC* transition occurred with essentially no layer shrinkage.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Polymerkemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Polymer Chemistry (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Den kondenserade materiens fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Condensed Matter Physics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

de vries smectic

electrooptics

molecular design

siloxane liquid crystal

smectic-c

transition

polysiloxanes

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