The influence of a complexing agent ion on the magnitude of the optical anisotropy of lanthanidomesogens

Measurements of the refractive indices and optical anisotropy of a series of liquid crystalline coordination compounds based on lanthanides with an identical ligand environment have been carried out. It was found that the magnitude of the optical anisotropy of the investigated complexes was several times smaller than the anisotropy of organic liquid crystals. Analysis of the results showed that the variation of the ion complexing agent had little effect on the magnitude of the optical anisotropy in the mesogenic complexes containing the same ligands. The even-odd alternation of the optical anisotropy of lanthanidomesogens at the increasing the number of protons in the ions of the lanthanides has been observed.