Journal
LIQUID CRYSTALS TODAY
Volume 29, Issue 1, Pages 2-14Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/1358314X.2020.1771841
Keywords
liquid crystal dimers; twist-bend nematic phase; chirality; structure-property relationships; hydrogen-bonding
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Funding
- Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
- Royal Society of Chemistry
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This article will review some of our recent work concerning the relationships between molecular structure and the observation of the fascinating twist-bend nematic, N-TB, phase. From a chemist's perspective, understanding the molecular features influencing the formation and stabilisation of the N-TB phase is of paramount importance, and allows for the design of new materials that have targeted properties. As such, recent work in Aberdeen has had the primary aim of enhancing our current understanding of these relationships in dimeric liquid crystals, through the synthesis and characterisation of a diverse range of materials, including a selection of supramolecular liquid crystals. A second aim has been to explore the intriguing question as to how the N-TB phase, having spontaneous structural chirality, would respond at a microscopic level to the presence of intrinsic molecular chirality - the inclusion of chiral fragments in the dimers - and to obtain examples of the 'chiral' twist-bend nematic phase (N*(TB)) for comparative study alongside the conventional N-TB phase. We also show that bent achiral molecules form heliconical smectic phases, as predicted by Dozov in his seminal 2001 work.
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