Abstract
A new series of three ring type liquid crystalline compounds containing partially fluorinated alkenyl or alkyl side chains together with fluorine substituted cyclohexylbiphenyls were designed and synthesized in this study. The structures of synthe sized compounds were established by 1 H, 13 C and 19 F NMR spectroscopy. The phase transition temperatures of fluorinated liquid crystalline compounds were determined by cross-polarizing mi-croscopy equipped withhot stage. All compounds were found to have nematic liquid crystalline phase with rel-atively low phase transition temperature and wide liquid crystalline temperature range. The dependence of phase transition temperatures on the chainlength falls into three categories; (a) decreasing transition tempera-tures for 4-fluoro-4'-[4-fluoro-4-(1-fluoroalkyl)cyclohexyl]biphenyl (15) series, (b) higher transition tempera-tures for odd numbered chains for 4-fluoro-4'-[4-fluoro-4-(1-fluoroalk-1-enyl)cyclohexyl]biphenyl (14) series, (c) higher transition temperatures for even numbered chains for 4-[4-(1,2-difluoroalk-1-enyl)-4-fluorocyclo-hexyl]-4'-fluorobiphenyl (16) series.