Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/H62114/01
Title:	NEW TEMPLATES BEARING RIGIDLY HELD CHIRAL CENTRS FOR ENHANCED FERROELECTRIC PROPERTIES IN LIQUID CRYSTALS
Principal Investigator:	Hird, Dr M
Other Investigators:	Toyne, Professor K Goodby, Professor JW
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Hull
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 November 1992	Ends:	31 October 1995	Value (£):	109,511
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Materials Synthesis & Growth
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Electronics
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
The synthesis of chiral materials is presently the subject of intense research because chiral systems have almost endless potential in both biological and molecular electronics applications. The synthetic work that we propose would be of great benefit to both of these fields. However, in the first instance we plan to limit the scope of this research project to address two important strategic and systematic studies of chirality and ferroelectricity in liquid crystal systems. We propose to design and synthesise liquid crystal compounds that have one or two chiral centres inherently fixed in rigid positions in their structures. This can be achieved in either of two ways (a) by locating the chiral centre on a central ring position (either within the core or on the edge of the core) and/or by (b) introducing a ring system that has axial chirality (no defined asymmetric atom). The liquid crystal properties of compounds that are synthesised will be characterised and their physical properties investigated. Of particular interest is the spontaneous polarisation (Ps), which will be studied (sign and magnitude) in the SC* phase. Similarly, for the cholesteric phase the pitch length will be determined. Both of these studies will allow the correlation of physical properties involving the degree of chirality with molecular architecture. For instance, this physical property work will show that SC* materials with a rigid chiral centre have enhanced ferroelectric properties and we aim to investigate at which positions within a liquid crystal a chiral centre is best held rigid in order to provide the optimum combination of spontaneous polarisation and pitch length. It is fully expected that some of the compounds that are synthesised will also exhibit unusual physical properties (including the exhibition of twist grain boundary phases (SA*) and antiferroelectric and ferroelectric SC* mesophases) because of the position and the nature of their chiral centres and because of their expected high enantiomeric excesses.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.hull.ac.uk