Optical Measurements on the BP III to Isotropic Phase Transition in Highly Chiral Liquid Crystals

Abstract

Optical activity and light scattering measurements in the chiral-racemic system of 4-(2-methylbutyl) phenyl-4-hexyloxybenzoate (CE4) reveal a much larger decrease in the discontinuity at the third blue phase (BP III) to isotropic phase transition than reported previously using adiabatic scanning calorimetry on another compound. Whereas these new data show that the transition is still slightly discontinuous for the pure optical isomer of CE4, similar light scattering measurements on the pure optical isomer of 4″-(2- methylbutylphenyl)-4′-(2-methylbutyl)-4-biphenyl-carboxylate (CE2), which is more chiral than CE4, show no discontinuity at all.