Enhancement of the helical twisting power with increasing the terminal chain length of nonchiral bent-core molecules doped in a chiral nematic liquid crystal

Jo, Seong-Yong; Kim, Byeong-Cheon; Jeon, Sung-Wook; Bae, Jae-Hyun; Walker, Martin; Wilson, Mark; Choi, Suk-Won; Takezoe, Hideo

Abstract

In this work, we prepared a series of nonchiral bent-core molecules with different terminal alkoxy chain lengths, and measured the helical twisting power (HTP) of the bent-core molecules doped in a chiral nematic liquid crystal (N*LC). We investigated the doping effect through the colour change and spectral change due to the Bragg (selective) reflection and found that the bent-core molecules with longer alkoxy chains showed stronger HTP under chiral circumstances such as N*LC. Namely, not only the axial conformations at wings linked to the bent central unit but also the length of the alkoxy chains at the terminal positions of the bent-core molecules play an important role in the resulting unusual chiral behaviour. A preliminary stochastic dynamics simulation to determine the distribution of the chirality order parameters was made, being consistent with the present experimental result.

Citation

Jo, S., Kim, B., Jeon, S., Bae, J., Walker, M., Wilson, M., …Takezoe, H. (2017). Enhancement of the helical twisting power with increasing the terminal chain length of nonchiral bent-core molecules doped in a chiral nematic liquid crystal. RSC Advances, 7(4), 1932-1935. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ra27158h

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 21, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jan 12, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 12, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jan 6, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 17, 2017
• Journal: RSC Advances
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 1932-1935
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ra27158h
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1389138