Yoshinobu Murayama

Trifluoromethylated pyranose derivatives as the chiral dopant for ferroelectric liquid crystals

Abstract The novel pyranose derivatives with a trifluoromethyl group were found to be excellent chiral dopants for ferroelectric liquid crystals, inducing large spontaneous polarization by their addition even in a small quantity. These materials showed some characteristic physical properties depending on their stereochemical relationship : thus, the corresponding cis isomers exhibited high ability in inducing large spontaneous polarization and quick response but lowered the upper limit of the temperature of the Sc phase. However, the same trend in the spontaneous polarization was observed for the compounds with trans stereochemistry, without lowering the transition temperature of SA to SC, of the host liquid crystal. MoFover, it was also proved that the adjustment of the helical pitch of the N* phase was readily carried out. Based on these results, we have succeeded in the development of the practical ferroelectric liquid crystalline compositions with good alignment and quick response.