Molecular shape as a means to control the incidence of the nanostructured twist bend phase

TY - JOUR

T1 - Molecular shape as a means to control the incidence of the nanostructured twist bend phase

AU - Pocock, Emily E.

AU - Mandle, Richard

AU - Goodby, John William

N1 - ©The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018

PY - 2018/3/12

Y1 - 2018/3/12

N2 - Liquid crystalline phases with a spontaneous twist-bend modulation are most commonly observed for dimers and bimesogens with nonamethylene spacers. In order to redress this balance we devised a simple chemical intermediate that can be used to prepare unsymmetrical bimesogens; as a proof of concept we prepared and studied eleven novel materials with all found to exhibit the twist-bend phase and exhibit a linear relationship between TN-I and TTB-N. A computational study of the conformational landscape reveals the octamethyleneoxy spacer to have a broader distribution of bend-angles than the nonamethylene equivalent, leading to reductions in the thermal stability of the TB phase. This result indicates that a tight distribution of bend-angles should stabilise the TB phase and lead to direct TB-Iso phase transitions, and conversely a broader distribution should destabilise the TB phase which may allow new states of matter that are occluded by the incidence of this phase to be revealed.

AB - Liquid crystalline phases with a spontaneous twist-bend modulation are most commonly observed for dimers and bimesogens with nonamethylene spacers. In order to redress this balance we devised a simple chemical intermediate that can be used to prepare unsymmetrical bimesogens; as a proof of concept we prepared and studied eleven novel materials with all found to exhibit the twist-bend phase and exhibit a linear relationship between TN-I and TTB-N. A computational study of the conformational landscape reveals the octamethyleneoxy spacer to have a broader distribution of bend-angles than the nonamethylene equivalent, leading to reductions in the thermal stability of the TB phase. This result indicates that a tight distribution of bend-angles should stabilise the TB phase and lead to direct TB-Iso phase transitions, and conversely a broader distribution should destabilise the TB phase which may allow new states of matter that are occluded by the incidence of this phase to be revealed.

U2 - 10.1039/C7SM02364B

DO - 10.1039/C7SM02364B

M3 - Article

SN - 1744-683X

JO - Soft Matter

JF - Soft Matter

ER -