Ferroelectric liquid crystal siloxane homo and copolymers

Several new chiral liquid crystal siloxane homopolymers and copolymers have been synthesized and studied as to their mesomorphic and ferroelectric behaviour. Almost all of them exhibit chiral smectic C phases over wide temperature ranges. DSC and X-ray measurements are presented; spontaneous polarizations, response times and tilt angles are also given. Some of the spontaneous polarizations are very high, more than 100 nC/cm², and the response times are found to be among the fastest for liquid-crystalline polymers, less than 1 ms.