Li, Y.-X., Cheng, H., Zeng, X. et al. (3 more authors) (2020) Tailoring liquid crystal honeycombs by head-group choice in bird-like bent-core mesogens. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 8 (24). pp. 8069-8076. ISSN 2050-7526
Abstract
We introduce a new class of mesogens that are bird-like in shape and form honeycomb-type supramolecular liquid crystals. They have a bent pi-conjugated aromatic core as wings, a linear or branched chain as the tail and a selection of functional headgroups. Honeycombs of non-centrosymmetric trigonal type (p3m1) are obtained, along with two different complex honeycomb superlattices (p31m and p2gg) and a randomized hexagonal mesophase (p6mm). The key determinant of the self-assembled structure is the nature of interaction of the headgroup with the glycerols at the ends of the wings. The structure depends on whether the sub-columns lying along the edges of the prismatic cells contain pure or mixed headgroups and wing-end hydrogen-bonding groups. Its assembly is further controlled by reducing the tail-chain volume, inducing out-of-plane buckling of the honeycomb. These two modes of symmetry breaking lead to structural polarity both in- and out-of-plane, opening the way to applications in devices relying on properties such as ferroelectricity and second harmonic generation.
Metadata
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Royal Society of Chemistry. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | ||||
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) | ||||
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield | ||||
Date Deposited: | 12 Jun 2020 07:53 | ||||
Last Modified: | 12 Nov 2021 17:03 | ||||
Status: | Published | ||||
Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry | ||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1039/d0tc01879a |