Electroclinic effect in a chiral carbosilane-terminated 5-phenylpyrimidine liquid crystal with 'de Vries-like' properties

Christopher P J Schubert; Carsten Müller; Michael D Wand; Frank Giesselmann; Robert P Lemieux

doi:10.1039/c5cc05212b

Electroclinic effect in a chiral carbosilane-terminated 5-phenylpyrimidine liquid crystal with 'de Vries-like' properties

Chem Commun (Camb). 2015 Aug 14;51(63):12601-4. doi: 10.1039/c5cc05212b.

Authors

Christopher P J Schubert¹, Carsten Müller, Michael D Wand, Frank Giesselmann, Robert P Lemieux

Affiliation

¹ Chemistry Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. rplemieux@uwaterloo.ca.

PMID: 26153801
DOI: 10.1039/c5cc05212b

Abstract

The chiral carbosilane-terminated liquid crystal 2-[(2S,3S)-2,3-difluorohexyloxy]-5-[4-(12,12,14,14,16,16-hexamethyl-12,14,16-trisilaheptadecyloxy)phenyl]pyrimidine () undergoes a smectic A*-smectic C* phase transition with a maximum layer contraction of only 0.2%. It exhibits an electroclinic effect (ECE) comparable to that reported for the 'de Vries-like' liquid crystal and shows no appreciable optical stripe defects due to horizontal chevron formation.