Tailoring the physical properties of some high birefringence isothiocyanato-based liquid crystals

This paper describes the synthesis and characterization of several liquid crystal compounds having a tolane or terphenyl core structure and a high polarizability, isothiocyanato (NCS), terminal group. The synthesized compounds have high optical birefringerce (0.35 and 0.52), the highest being exhibi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLiquid crystals Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 541 - 555
Main Authors Catanescu, Carmen Otilia, Wu, Shin-Tson, Chien, Liang-Chy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Taylor & Francis Group 01.04.2004
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Summary:This paper describes the synthesis and characterization of several liquid crystal compounds having a tolane or terphenyl core structure and a high polarizability, isothiocyanato (NCS), terminal group. The synthesized compounds have high optical birefringerce (0.35 and 0.52), the highest being exhibited by the olefin-tolanes. Several eutectic mixtures are formulated and show improved properties over the single compounds, such as a broad nematic range, low melting temperature and relatively high clearing point. The birefringence of these mixtures is in the range 0.35-0.37. UV, viscosity and electro-optical measurements of the synthesized compounds are also reported. Dipole moment and polarizability calculations were made using CS-MOPAC and Hyperchem software computational programmes.
ISSN:0267-8292
1366-5855
DOI:10.1080/02678290410001662240