High birefringence liquid crystalline mixture: Optical properties and order parameter

Liquid crystal mixtures with tailored electro-optical behaviour; especially high birefringence (Delta n >= 0.30) is presently being used extensively in display and other devices. Cyano (CN) and isothiocyanato (NCS) are two polar groups commonly employed for this purpose. The present work entails the study of optical properties of a five component liquid crystal mixture (code name: 1770-2) containing alkylfluoroisothiocyanatotolanes and alkylphenylfluoroisothiocyanato-tolanes with a potentiality for entertaining this possibility. To explore this possibility the optical and polarizability anisotropies (in terms of molecular weight) have been determined and their thermal variation investigated. The order parameter (orientational) has been obtained from polarizability anisotropy and its thermal dependence determined. The experimentally obtained values have been compared with theoretical values computed from Maier-Saupe theory. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4790372]