High birefringence difluoroisothiocyanate biphenyl tolane liquid crystals

Several difluoroisothiocyanato-based biphenyl tolanes exhibiting high optical birefringence are presented and their representative molecular structure is shown below. [GRAPHICS] The optical birefringence of these liquid crystals lies between 0.44 to 0.48. Several eutectic mixtures of the biphenyltolanes with other compounds have been formulated and their properties investigated. The molecular simulations of polarizability and dipole moment of biphenyl tolanes are also presented.