Liquid Crystalline Networks Composed of Pentagonal, Square, and Triangular Cylinders
Bin Chen,1
Xiangbing Zeng,3
Ute Baumeister,2
Goran Ungar,3
Carsten Tschierske1*
T-shaped molecules are designed in such a way that they self-organize
into nanoscale liquid crystalline honeycombs based on polygons
with any chosen number of sides. One of the phases reported
here is a periodic organization of identical pentagonal cylinders;
the other one is a structure composed of square-shaped and triangular
cylinders in the ratio 2:1. These two different packing motifs
represent duals of the same topological class. The generalization
of the concept applied here allows the prediction of a whole
range of unusual complex liquid crystalline phases.
2 Institute of Physical Chemistry, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Kurt-Mothes-Strasse 2, D-06120 Halle, Germany.
3 Department of Engineering Materials and Centre for Molecular Materials, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: carsten.tschierske{at}chemie.uni-halle.de
