The constituent molecules of the antiparallel cyanobiphenyl pairs rotate about their long axis in the SmA phaseboth independently and cooperatively -27 meaning that the time averaged shape of the individual molecules is rod like. To estimate the gross shape of 4 and 5 we obtained optimized geometries at the B3LYP/6-31G(d) level of DFT for both materials before optimizing the geometries of conformers that arise from ring flips or twist-boat states.