4’-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl - 5CB

Abstract

ABSTRACT Thermotropic liquid crystals have been known from 1888, but have experienced little practical application or commercial usage up until the 1970s, when they were sandwiched between conducting glass plates and an electric field was applied. Their response to the field precipitously demonstrated an opportunity for creating and changing visible images using low voltage electric fields. At a similar time, the world was about to experience the invention of integrated electrical circuits, or CHIPs as they became known. The strange connection between solid-state semi-conductor electronics and the imagery provided via semi-fluid non-conducting organic materials meant that visual communication devices became a possibility, provided that there was an associated revolution in the design of nematogens as no suitable research or commercial materials were available at that time. With the synthesis of cyanobiphenyls by chemists at the University of Hull in 1972, within two years the picture dramatically changed. This is the story of the birth 5CB.