Design and Synthesis of Chiral Dopants Having a Chiral Ring Structure for Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

Abstract

New chiral dopants having a chiral ring structure were designed and synthesized. The materials investigated here are three-membered ring compounds such as cyanocyclopropanes, fluorocyclopropanes, (trifluoromethyl)cyclopropanes, and difluorocyclopropanes, five-membered ring compounds such as γ-lactones, tetrahydrofurans, and 2-oxazolidinones, six-membered ring compounds such as 1, 3-dioxanes and 1, 3-dioxan-2-ones, and 1, 3-diols which form a sixmembered ring through intramolecular hydrogen bonding. The ferroelectric liquid crystal mixtures doped with one of these compounds exhibited high spontaneous polarization (Ps).