Qinetiq Limited

Stephen J Cowling

Kenneth J Toyne

John William Goodby

Michael Hird

Neil Gough

Guirec Y Cosquer

The use of a mesogenic compound having a terminal end chain comprising carbon, oxygen, or sulphur, which has at least one pendent Calkyl, Calkoxy or a cycloalkyl ring, arranged no more than 6 atoms from the end of the chain either decreasing the melting point, increasing the clearing point, increasing the speed of switching and/or increasing the tilt angle of a liquid crystal mixture. Examples of such compounds are of formula (I)  

Liquid crystal compounds with branched or cyclic end groups

Polymeric compounds of general formula (I) where X, X , X are independently straight or branched chain C alkyl, halogen and H; (a) is a suitable mesogenic group; Z&equals;single covalent bond, oxygen CO , OCO; n&equals;1-20; Y&equals;oxygen, CO , OCO, CH , CHOH, CH O; m&equals;3-10,000. The compounds are liquid crystal polymers useful in liquid crystal devices, sensors, and in non-linear optical devices. The compounds are prepared by polymerization of the oxitane monomer to obtain the side-chain liquid crystalline polyoxitane compound. In this way the mesogenic groups are spaced on every fourth carbon atom in the polymer chain allowing greater mobility for the mesogenic group.

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Hull, United Kingdom

Stephen J Cowling