CB 15 (CAS NO .59137-36-9)

This is a nematic liquid crystal composed of a hardcore (the biphenyl) and a flexible tail (the hydrocarbon tail). It is achiral, which means that its mirror image is identical to itself. Long axes of molecules are aligned along a single direction known as the liquid crystal director in the nematic phase. The liquid crystal director is unidirectional in space in its ground state. If a constituent molecule (or a constituent component) is chiral, the liquid crystal director bends in space. This liquid crystal is also known as cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) or chiral nematic liquid crystal (N*LC).