Effect of terminal functional group size on ferroelectric and antiferroelectric properties of liquid crystals

Abstract

Through the incorporation of sterically hindering, bulky terminal groups into the structures of chiral and racemic smectic liquid‐crystalline materials, we sought to interfere with, and decouple, the layers of various mesophases. By varying the size of the terminal group we found that we could control the mesophase structure, and to some degree its physical properties. In this article we present textural and X‐ray data which give insights into the structures of the mesophases.

Acknowledgement

We thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Kingston Chemicals Ltd (UK) for financial support. We also thank Dr P. Kouwer for technical support with the X‐ray diffraction experiments, Mrs J.A. Haley for technical assistance with differential scanning calorimetry, Mrs B. Worthington for assistance with NMR spectroscopy and determining optical rotations, and Mrs C. Kennedy for elemental analysis.