SBIR Phase I: A New Class of Complex Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Mesogens for Advanced Electro-Optic Devices

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在测试开发复杂液晶分子家族的可行性，这些分子提供以前无法获得的材料特性;特别是先进的电光功能。几十年来，主要的液晶分子一直是简单棒状的变体。近年来，全新的液晶分子（液晶基元）开始出现，如双核“香蕉”分子和二聚体，它们表现出新颖的和潜在的有价值的性质。这项工作将集中在如何二聚体可以设计拥有所需的液晶相序列和这些新分子的一般结构功能规则是什么基本问题。目标是合成一系列易于获得的二聚体，通过尾核修饰控制其介晶性，在这种新型介晶中构建“结构-性质”关系，并找到合适的取向技术，最终预期的好处包括开发一种新型电光（EO）材料，该材料将在EO强度和寿命方面超过当前的有机竞争对手，并且将在EO性能、可集成性和低成本方面超过当前商业EO材料。潜在的商业应用包括电信（高速EO调制（例如100 GHz），M × N开关，自由空间通信光束转向，放大），检测（LADAR光束转向，光学传感器）和光学信息处理（空间光调制器，全息术，光学计算和存储）。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to test the feasibility of developing families of complex liquid crystal molecules that offer previously unobtainable material properties; advanced electro-optic capabilities in particular. For decades, predominant liquid crystal molecules have been variants on simple rod shapes. Radically new liquid crystal molecules (mesogens) have begun to appear in recent years, such as bent-core "banana" molecules and dimers, which exhibit novel and potentially valuable properties. This work will focus on fundamental questions of how dimers can be designed to possess the required liquid crystal phase sequences and what the general structure-function rules for these new molecules are. The objectives are to synthesize a series of readily accessible dimers, control their mesogenicity by the modification of tails and cores, construct "structure-property" relationships in this new type of mesogens, and find suitable alignment techniques.The ultimate anticipated benefits include the development of a new type of electro-optic (EO) materials that will surpass current organic competitors in EO strength and lifetime, and will surpass current commercial EO materials in EO performance, integrability, and low cost. Potential commercial applications include telecommunications (high-speed EO modulation (e.g. 100GHz), M by N switches, free space communications beam steering, amplification), detection (LADAR beam steering, optical sensors), and optical information processing (spatial light modulators, holography, optical computing and storage).