The prehistory of discotic mesophases – a personal account of the study of the mesophase of diisobutylsilane diol

Abstract

A personal account is given of an investigation into the structure of the thermotropic phase of diisobutylsilane diol in the late 1970s. This had been studied 25 years earlier, but the detailed optical investigations by Hartshorne and a preliminary X-ray diffraction study in Bernal’s laboratory had not resolved the structure of the mesophase. A re-consideration of the significance of the optical textures and the structure of the crystalline solid led to the suggestion that this mesophase was the first example of the long-awaited small-molecule discotic phase. However, unknown to the author, Chandrasekhar and co-workers were just about to make public their work on the benzene hexaalkanoates.