Abstract
In spite of numerous reports of chiroptical liquid crystalline (LC) molecules bearing asymmetric carbons, there is few examples based on axial chirality. Here we have synthesized novel chirotical 1,1'-bi-2-naphthols with LC groups consisting of phenylcyclohexyl or biphenyl moiety as a mesogenic core. Chiral nematic liquid crystalline system was prepared by adding the binaphthol derivative as a chiral dopant into the equi-weighted mixture of two kinds of nematic LCs. Subsequently, acetylene polymerizations was carried out under chiral nematic phase of the liquid crystalline solvent. Polyacetylene film synthesized is found to have helical fibrillar morphology. As a result, the present chiral nematic LC system is demonstrated to be feasible for anisotropic reaction field of acetylene polymerization.
