New Forms of Chirality in Liquid Crystals: Design of Frustrated and Cooperative Systems

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9811377 Swager This Selected Grant for Exploratory Research project will focus on the synthesis and investigation of liquid crystals with unusual forms of chirality and shape. The use of chiral sidechains and molecular shape will be examined to create systems that have two opposing organizational preferences. This competition will provide frustration, and it is expected that these materials will produce interesting situations and give rise to novel phases and properties. In other systems, the interactions between the chirality and the molecular shape may be comparative. Illustrations of the types of phases include polar lamellar structures with NLO properties, biaxial nematics for display applications, and chiral columnar phases. The columnar phases should display different degrees of chirality with the application of electric fields, which may be used to produce electro-optical modulators. %%% The response of liquid crystals to electric fields is at the heart of all Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). This work seeks to generate new types of liquid crystals with extended organizations that have a chiral or handed sense. These new liquid crystal materials will produce a rotation of plane polarized light that is expected to be altered upon their interaction with an electric field. New phases introduced by competing and opposing interactions are also envisioned. These new phases as well as the interaction of the materials with electric fields have the potential to produce a new class of optical switching materials. ***