Development of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals Utilizing the Enzymatic Method

With the increase of interest in the electrooptical devices using ferroelectric liquid crystals, there has been a considerable amount of efforts in the synthesis and evaluation of many compounds exhibiting Sc* phase. Particularly, the wide range of temperature and the low rotational viscosity are needed for the practical use. In order to solve these problems, it is important to design the liquid crystal that has a properly designed size of molecule and a suitable chiral center. It is particularly effective to introduce methylene chain linkage between a chiral carbon atom and core part. We also study the effect of the substitution of fluorine atoms on the benzene ring and the chiral part. We established the method for the synthesis of these kinds of liquid crystals utilizing the enzymatic method in high optical yield.