Optical Anisotropy and Relative Order in Cholesteryl-n-Alkyl Carbonates

Abstract

The paper discusses the results of the calculation of the relative order parameters and the optical anisotropies from birefringence data in the case of the homologous series of compounds, Cholesteryl-n-alkyl carbonates. The relative order parameters are found to exhibit the well known zig-zag alternation with increase in the number of atoms of the alkyl chain. The calculated values of the optical anisotropy of the different molecules are approximately equal, indicating that the optical anisotropy arises mainly from the central rigid portion of the molecule and that the contribution of the alkyl chain to the optical anisotropy is not significant.