Effect of terminal chain length on the helical twisting power in achiral bent-core molecules doped in a cholesteric liquid crystal

Kim, Byeong-Cheon; Walker, Martin; Jo, Seong-Yong; Wilson, Mark R.; Takezoe, Hideo; Choi, Suk-Won

Abstract

We prepared a homologous series of achiral bent-core (BC) liquid crystals with different terminal alkoxy chain lengths, n (BC-n), and evaluated the helical twisting power (HTP) of the BC-n doped in a cholesteric liquid crystal. The BC-n molecules with longer terminal chains showed larger HTPs. To interpret this striking phenomenon, a stochastic dynamics simulation was performed to determine the distribution of the chirality order parameters (χ) for BC molecules with n = 8–16. The distribution of χ for each simulated conformation varied with n, and the variation tendency was different for molecules with n < 12 and n > 12 despite the linear relationship between HTP and n in the experiment.

Citation

Kim, B., Walker, M., Jo, S., Wilson, M. R., Takezoe, H., & Choi, S. (2018). Effect of terminal chain length on the helical twisting power in achiral bent-core molecules doped in a cholesteric liquid crystal. RSC Advances, 8(3), 1292-1295. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7ra11589j

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 3, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 3, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2018
• Journal: RSC Advances
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 1292-1295
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c7ra11589j
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1337211