Mesomorphic, thermodynamic, electro-optic and dielectric properties of three homologues of fluorosubstituted esters are described. Full chemical names of these compounds are as follows: (S)-(+)-4-(1-metyl-hepty-loksy)benzoate-(6-penta-fluoro-propano-ynloxyhex-1-oxy)-biphenyl-4-yl (in short 2F6BBiOC8), (S)-(+)-4-(1-metyl-hepty-loksy)benzoate-(6-nona-fluoro-pentano-yloxyhex-1-oxy)-biphenyl-4-yl (in short 4F6BBiOC8), (S)-(+)-4-(1-metyl-hepty-loksy)benzoate-(6-trideca-fluoro-heptano-yloxyhex-1-oxy)-biphenyl-4-yl (in short 6F6BBiOC8). The compounds exhibit ferroelectric smectic C* phase between crystalline and isotropic phase. Only one compound (6F6BBiOC8) shows antiferroelectric phase (SmC*_{A}) observed by dielectric spectroscopy, but the range of this phase is narrow of about 2°. All three compounds exhibit in the SmC* phase Goldstone mode and Maxwell-Wagner relaxation hidden in the conductivity contribution at low frequencies, whereas in the SmC* _{A} phase two anti-ferroelectric modes (AFM1) and (AFM2) contribute to the dielectric spectrum. The compounds were studied using differential scanning calorimetric, frequency domain dielectric spectroscopy, and reversal currents method to determine spontaneous polarization.
Physical properties of new thermotropic antiferroelectric liquid crystal have been studied. Experiments were done by use of complementary methods such as differential scanning calorimetry, polarizing optical microscopy and X-ray powder diffractometry. Acquired data from X-ray powder diffractometry was examined under application of quantum chemical approach. It has been found that compound studied exhibits stable enantiotropic antiferroelectric SmC_{A}* phase in the wide temperature range while ferroelectric phase SmC* is very narrow.
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