Novel high birefringence dibenzothiophenylacetylene liquid crystals

We have designed, synthesized and evaluated dibenzothiophenylacetylene homologues as new heterocyclic molecules which were expected to have high Deltaalpha values and short wavelength UV absorption spectra. The dibenzothiophenyl acetylene homologues exhibited wide nematic phase ranges and had very high extrapolated Deltan of over 0.6 and directly measured values of 0.5. The compounds with two dibenzothiophenyl rings were colourless, so that we have succeeded in obtaining colourless super-high Deltan liquid crystals. We have also analysed the contribution of the transition band to the refractive indices and the birefringence. From the analysis, the main origins of Deltan for compounds 1 and 2 are lower MOs than the HOMO and this results in the compatibility of large Deltan and lack of colour. The dibenzothiophenylacetylene compounds behaved according to our design expectations.