Design, Synthesis and Evaluation of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals with Saturated Cores

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目是在材料化学的一般领域，以及有机金属化学和物理有机化学的子领域。这项研究的长期科学目标是增加对铁电液晶(FLC)相的分子结构与物理性质的相关性的了解，并测试新材料设计的策略。具体地说，这项研究的目的是发明低双折射和低紫外吸收的新型FLC材料。这种FLC材料将应用于平板显示器和用于紫外光的空间光调制器(SLM)。铁电(手性)近晶C*液晶已被证明具有高速、多态电光和显示器件的应用，特别是当结合到表面稳定的铁电液晶(SSFLC)光阀中时。基于SSFLC器件概念的平板显示器具有许多潜在的优势。然而，由于现有材料的高双折射和大的紫外线吸收，SSFLC光阀在一些重要的应用中被证明是有问题的。这两个问题都是由于所有已知的FLC材料在液晶核心中都具有芳香环的事实。第一阶段活动的具体目标是设计、合成和评估具有饱和磁芯的新型FLC材料。要探索的具体核心结构包括新的立方体立方烷，以及与双环ı2.2.2！辛烷单元相结合的立方体单元。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is in the general area of materials chemistry and in the subfields of organometallic chemistry and physical organic chemistry. The long range scientific goals of this research are to increase understanding of the correlation of molecular structure with physical properties of ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) phases, and to test strategies for the design of new materials. Specifically, this research is aimed at inventing new FLC materials having low birefringence and low absorption at UV wavelengths. Such FLC materials would have application in flat panel displays and spatial light modulators (SLMs) for UV light. Ferroelectric (chiral) smectic C* liquid crystals have been shown to exhibit high speed, multistate electro-optic and display device applications, particularly when incorporated into the surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal (SSFLC) light valve. Flat panel displays based upon the SSFLC device concept have many potential advantages. However, due to the high birefringence and large UV absorption of existing materials, SSFLC light valves prove problematical in some important applications. Both of these problems are due to the fact that all known FLC materials possess aromatic rings in the liquid crystal core. The specific goal of this Phase I activity is to design, synthesize, and evaluate new FLC materials with saturated cores. The specific core structures to be explored include novel cubylcubanes, and cubane units combined with bicycloı2.2.2!octane units.