ABSTRACT
Four multicomponent room temperature mixtures were formulated using a pyrimidine-based achiral matrix as host and four terphenyl-based ester chiral compounds as dopants. Among the four mixtures, two exhibit antiferroelectric and two other exhibit ferroelectric phases at room temperature. Dopant molecules differ from each other by position and number of fluorine atom substitution at the benzoate group of the molecular rigid core. Number and location of fluorine atoms in the dopant structure show significant effect on the phase sequences as well as on different physical properties. All the mixtures found to have moderate spontaneous polarisation, high tilt angle, very fast switching time and low viscosity which are important for liquid crystal-based display applications.
Graphical Abstract
![](/cms/asset/49ea82f1-fb6c-4c75-b198-718a16c33abe/tlct_a_1333640_uf0001_oc.jpg)
Acknowledgements
We thankfully acknowledge the financial support under BRNS (DAE) project: [Grant Number 2010/37P/44/BRNS/1441]. Authors are also grateful to DST, India, for providing financial assistance to perform experiments at DESY, Germany. We are also grateful to Professor Roman Dabrowski, MUT, Poland, for supplying the compounds.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.