Ferroelectric liquid crystalline polysiloxanes designed for high second-order nonlinear susceptibilities

Ferroelectric liquid crystalline (FLC) copolysiloxanes containing suitable comonomers («NLO-chromophores») for second harmonic generation (SHG) have been prepared. Their important feature is a donor-acceptor x-system sited perpendicular to the long axis of the side-group moieties in order to adopt the polar ordering of the ferroelectric LC phase. The influcences of the mesogen structure and of the content of NLO-chromophores on the liquid crystalline and ferroelectric properties are studied. The desired chiral smectic C * phase is retained up to 30 mol-% of chromophore. Also, first measurements of second harmonic generation have been performed