Synthesis and characterization of novel chiral dimers exhibiting highly frustrated liquid crystal phases

Two novel series of optically active dimers comprising cholesterol and biphenyl-4-yl 4-(n-alkoxy)benzoate cores interlinked though either an odd-parity/even-parity spacer have been prepared and characterized. They stabilize an extremely complex, frustrated liquid crystalline state viz., the twist grain boundary (TGB) phase with chiral smectic C structure, denoted as TGBC^∗ phase, over a wide (50–110 °C) temperature range. Notably, the dimers with an odd-parity spacer show an additional frustrated liquid crystal phase namely, the blue phase (BP). The presence of such frustrated phases suggests that the synthesized dimers are characterized by high enantiomeric excess and strong molecular chirality. Thus, 12 new optically active, nonsymmetric dimers reported herein constitute new examples of rarely found strongly chiral, optically pure dimers showing frustrated liquid crystal phase over an adequately wide thermal range.