Optical Anisotropy of Phenylacetylene Homologues

In order to study the relationship between the chemical structures and the optical anisotropic properties of liquid crystalline materials, we synthesized and evaluated phenylacetylene homologoues. The mesomorphic properties and birefringence of the compounds will be presented. The relationship between the calculated anisotropy of polarizability (δ α) and observed optical anisotropy was also investigated. δ n increased with calculated δ α, but some compounds having substituent groups and 1-ring compounds exhibited lower δ n than some compounds which have almost same δ α.