The synthesis of nitroaniline monomers and polymers as non-linear optical ferroelectric liquid crystals

Chiral 2-amino-4-alkoxy-5-nitrobenzoate and 5-amino-4-alkoxy-2-nitrobenzoate derivatives as well as the corresponding biphenyl derivatives were synthesized. Some of them were also derivatised to the corresponding acrylates and polyacrylates. Many of the new substances exhibit a large spontaneous polarization and large second order NLO coefficients. In addition some of them show a broad range S-c* phase. All these properties depend strongly on small changes in the molecular structures. Here we present the synthesis of these novel NLO FLC materials and discuss some of their properties.