Mandle, RJ orcid.org/0000-0001-9816-9661, Abbott, LC, Fritsch, L et al. (6 more authors) (2022) Engineering mesophase stability and structure via incorporation of cyclic terminal groups. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 10 (15). pp. 5934-5943. ISSN 2050-7526
Abstract
We report on the characterisation of a number of liquid–crystalline materials featuring cyclic terminal groups, which lead to significant enhancements in the temperature range of the mesomorphic state. Materials with only short terminal chains are able to support lamellar mesophase formation by appending a large terminal cyclic unit at the end of a short spacer composed of methylene units. X-ray scattering experiments reveal that the layer spacings of the lamellar smectic phase are significantly larger when a cyclic end-group is present than for equivalent linear unsubstituted materials, but there is no effect on orientational order. Fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations faithfully reproduce experimental layer spacings and orientational order parameters, and indicate that the cyclic terminal units spontaneously segregate into diffuse sub-layers and thus cause the increased layer spacing. This shape segregation predicted by molecular dynamics simulations is observed in the crystalline solid state by X-ray diffraction.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2022. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Soft Matter Physics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 01 Jun 2023 12:01 |
Last Modified: | 01 Jun 2023 12:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry |
Identification Number: | 10.1039/d1tc05954h |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:199768 |