Design of polar self-assembling lactic acid derivatives possessing submicrometre helical pitch

• Alexej Bubnov,
• Cyril Vacek,
• Michał Czerwiński,
• Terezia Vojtylová,
• Wiktor Piecek and
• Věra Hamplová

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 333–341, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.33

• and for further utilisation in electro-optic devices based on the deformed helix ferroelectric effect. Keywords: ferroelectric liquid crystal; keto group; self-assembly on the nanoscale; soft ferroelectrics; submicrometre helical pitch length; Introduction The design of advanced self-assembling

• their combination) by a keto group in order to link alkyl chains with the molecular core can result in a considerable increase in the values of the spontaneous polarisation [35][36]. Specifically, several series of the lactic acid derivatives [9] possessing a keto group utilised as a linkage between the

• materials with much longer alkyl chains possess this type of spontaneous polarisation and tilt angle behaviour as well [20]. Saturated θs values reach 20–28°, which is very comparable to values that can be found for materials with the ether linkage group [9][52] or for similar compounds with the keto group