Design and synthesis of ferroelectric liquid crystals. 22. side-by-side dimers for nonlinear optics

Abstract

Abstract Possessing excellent processibility on silicon integrated circuits and a thermodynamically stable polar supermolecular structure, chiral smectic C (C*) ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) are promising materials for use in ultra-fast (>500 MHz) integrated electro-optic modulators. In order to realize this promise, however, it is necessary to obtain FLC materials with values of the electronic second order nonlinear optical (NLO) susceptibility χ(2) larger than have been reported to date. One way to achieve this goal is to obtain orientation of “large β” organic functional arrays, composed of two rings with a conjugating spacer unit, along the polar axis in the C* phase. Such long molecular groupings, however, typically orient along the director in LC phases, normal to the C* polar axis. We present herein the results of the initial investigation of an approach for achieving large χ(2) in FLCs. In this case orientation of the prototypical large β chromophore found in the dye Disperse Red 1 (DR1) is...