New carbosilane ferroelectric liquid crystalline dendrimers

For the first time a series of carbosilane ferroelectric liquid crystalline dendrimers of generations 1 - 3 with 8, 16 and 32 terminal ethyl-1-lactate -containing mesogenic groups, respectively, has been synthesised. Structure s and purity of all new compounds were confirmed by H-1 NMR spectroscopy an d GPC analysis. All LC dendrimers synthesised exhibit only a chiral smectic C mesophase in a broad temperature range. The highest spontaneous polariza tion is about 140 nC/cm(2) for the LC dendrimer of the first generation and is reduced with increase of generation number.