Four-ring achiral unsymmetrical bent core molecules forming strongly fluorescent smectic liquid crystals with spontaneous polar and chiral ordered B7 and B1 phases

Abstract

Achiral molecules based on a novel four-ring core with an ester linkage at the molecular bend are shown to exhibit smectic liquid crystal phases with spontaneously chiral and polar layers (SmCP phases), including their polarization splay modulated and layer undulated (PMLU) variants, B7 and B1. Additionally, these compounds exhibit strong photoluminescence, the first family of SmCP phases to do so.