STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LINEAR DIMERIC AND CYCLIC TETRAMERIC LIQUID-CRYSTALLINE SILOXANE DERIVATIVES

The phase behaviour and the structural characterization of a new series of Linear dimeric and cyclic tetrameric molecules which contain three distinct parts, a cyanobiphenyl aromatic core (A), a paraffin chain (P) and a central siloxane group (B) with the A-P-B-P-A sequence, are described. Incompatible with one another, these parts tend to locate themselves in three separate sub-layers superposed in a partially bilayered smectic A structure. Each sub-layer adapts its internal structure in order to be appropriate for superposition, as in the case of organosiloxane molecules with the A-P-B sequence reported previously.