Design of Polar Organic Liquid Crystalline Thin Films

We describe a strategy for the design of noncentrosymmetric organic thin films with thermodynamically stable polar order. We report the thermal and optical properties of a group of hydrogen bonding liquid crystalline (LC) monomers. The self-assembly of these LC materials could lead to improved polar stability and processibility yielding novel devices that utilize pyroelectricity, piezoelectricity, or second-order NLO properties.