Spontaneous chiral induction in rod-like liquid crystals by introducing bent alkyl chains

Abstract

Spontaneous chiral induction in bent-core liquid crystal molecules is well-known in the field of liquid crystals, but the examples of rod-like molecules are extremely limited. In this study, as a new and simple approach to induce chirality from achiral liquid crystal molecules, we have synthesized rod-like liquid crystal molecules with bent alkyl chains. The results of polarized optical microscopy (POM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement indicated that B3-Ol has three smectic C liquid crystal phases. By circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, CD signals were observed, and we found that the signal intensity varies with the core length.