The influence of alkoxy chain length on the ferroelectric properties of chiral fluorenol liquid crystals

A series of isomeric chiral fluorenol mesogens with different alkoxy chain length combinations have been prepared in order to test a model for the origin of polar order in the chiral SmC* phase formed by these compounds. The results show that the transposition of alkoxy side chains has no effect on the sign of spontaneous polarization, P_S, which is inconsistent with a model suggesting that polar order arises from a rotational bias of antiparallel hydrogen-bonded dimers that minimizes free volume in the tilted SmC* phase.