Novel chiral titanium complexes as chiral dopants with catalytic activity for synthesis of helical polyacetylene

Helical polyacetylene recently developed is anticipated to show novel elect romagnetic and optical properties. Here, we synthesized a series of chiral titanium complexes with chiral center-containing groups or axially chiral 1 ,1'-binaphtyl ones as coordination ligands, to develop catalytically active chiral dopants feasible for the asymmetric polymerization of acetylene. It is found that these complexes induce chiral nematic (N*) phase when dissol ved in a mixture of two nematic liquid crystals (LCs) and can polymerize ac etylene to give helical polyacetylene with an aid of Et3Al used as a co-cat alyst under the N* LC.