Ferroelectric nematic phase at and below room temperature

ABSTRACT

We report a liquid crystal 1 that shows ferroelectricity at room temperature. 1 directly enters the ferroelectric nematic phase from the isotropic phase upon cooling, without the formation of a conventional nematic phase. The synthesis, microscopic texture observations and dielectric spectroscopy measurement results of 1 are presented. A relative permittivity of over 20000 is observed in the ferroelectric nematic phase. Together with its low melting point the new liquid crystal will accelerate application research and device prototyping in various directions.

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KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystals
• ferroelectric
• nematic
• highly polar order

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Harald Lannert for synthesis, Marc Sauer for DSC and microscopy observation, Patrick Schrod, Bettina Schröder and Dr. Simon Siemianowski for dielectric spectroscopy measurement, and Dr. Harald Untenecker for the X-Ray crystal structure determination.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).