The nematic liquid crystalline phase of N-(4-methoxybenzylidene)-4-n-butylaniline (MBBA) was effectively transformed into the chiral nematic phase upon addition of zinc(II) complexes of the linear tetrapyrrole bearing chiral auxiliaries at the helix terminal.
In order to investigate effective dopants to induce chiral nematic liquid crystalline phases, novel freebase (FbBL) and zinc bilinone (ZnBL) derivatives bearing optically active aliphatic groups ((S)-3,7-dimethyloctyls) at the peripheral positions were prepared. From the CD spectra, it was confirmed that M-helicity in the bilinone frameworks was modestly enriched for ZnBLs, whereas helicity was hardly induced for FbBLs except for the o-xylylene-spaced dimer. When N-(4-methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline (MBBA) was doped with the bilinone derivatives, the chiral nematic phase was effectively induced, and the helical twisting powers (b M s) ranged from -95 to -159 lm -1 . The control experiment using (S)-3,7-dimethyl-1-phenyloctane (b M = ?14 lm -1 ) clearly showed that the induced chiral helical frameworks of FbBL and ZnBL predominantly contribute to chiral nematic induction of MBBA.
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