Toward rational design of complex nanostructured liquid crystals

Abstract

An analogy of block copolymer micro-segregation as a low-molecular weight nanostructured liquid crystal (LC) was tested with recently found columnar and cubic phase-forming LC molecules, to clarify the broader applicability of the analogy as a molecular design principle. We found that the copolymer analogy principle also works well for new micellar cubic phase-forming molecules. For bicontinuous cubic phase-forming 1,2-bis(4'-n-alkoxybenzoyl)hydrazines (BABH-n) compounds that cover a much broader core fraction range than that predicted by the copolymer analogy, we propose hierarchical preferential orientation as an additional mechanism for their cubic range broadening. For azo-dichiral molecules that also do not fit with the above principle, we propose chiral segregation as an alternative origin for their cubic phase formation.