In this article, we report synthesis and characterization of a novel thermotropic liquid crystals, namely, 4-bromo-[3-nitro-4(4-n-alkoxybenzoyloxy)] phenyl azobenzenes. The first member of a homologous series is nonmesogenic in nature. The n-ethyl to n-decyl homologues exhibit enantiotropic nematic mesophases, while the n-dodecylton -hexadecyl homologues exhibit only smectic mesophases. The synthesized compounds were characterized by a combination of elemental analysis and standard spectroscopic methods. The mesogenic behavior of present series is explained by comparing each homologue of the related mesogenic series. The impact of the lateral nitro group on mesomorphism is also discussed.