抄録
A class of liquid crystals that has recently generated considerable interest is that of the liquid crystal dimers. Whereas the more familiar monomer systems generally comprise of a single rigid unit connected to a flexible chain, the dimers have two mesogenic groups conneeted with a flexible spacer. This simple extension allows the creation of a whole group of liquid crystal materials that possess properties fundamentally different to their monomer constituents, properties that resemble to a greater extent those of semi-flexible main chain liquid polymers. The majority of dimer systems synthesised and studied so far can be classed as symmetric dimers; i.e. the two mesogenic groups are identical. However, a second group exists where the dimers have different mesogenic groups, the so-called non-symmetric dimers. This presentation is concerned with the non-symmetric α-(4-cyanobiphenyl-4'-yloxy)-ω-(4-n-alkylanilinebenzylidine-4'-oxy) alkanes, CBOnO.ms[1].
