We carry out the first study of smectic liquid crystalline colloidal shells and investigate how their complex internal structure depends on the director configuration in the nematic phase, preceding the smectic phase on cooling. Differences in the free energy cost of director bend and splay give an initial skewed distribution of topological defects in the nematic phase. In the smectic phase, the topological and geometrical constraints of the spherical shell imposed on the developing 1D quasi-long-range order create a conflict that triggers a series of buckling instabilities. Two different characteristic defect patterns arise, one driven by the curvature of the shell, the other by the strong nonuniformities in the director field in the vicinity of the topological defects.

Motivated by numerous recent reports indicating attractive properties of composite materials of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and liquid crystals (LCs) and a lack of research aimed at optimizing such composites, the process of dispersing CNTs in thermotropic LCs is systematically studied. LC hosts can perform comparably or even better than the best known organic solvents for CNTs such as N‐methyl pyrrolidone (NMP), provided that the dispersion process and choice of LC material are optimized. The chemical structure of the molecules in the LC is very important; variations in core as well as in terminal alkyl chain influence the result. Several observations moreover indicate that the anisotropic nematic phase, aligning the nanotubes in the matrix, per se stabilizes the dispersion compared to a host that is isotropic and thus yields random tube orientation. The chemical and physical phenomena governing the preparation of the dispersion and its stability are identified, taking into account enthalpic, entropic, as well as kinetic factors. This allows a guideline on how to best design and prepare CNT–LC composites to be sketched, following which tailored development of new LCs may take the advanced functional material that CNT–LC composites comprise to the stage of commercial application.

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Liquid crystals can be easily aligned in desired directions by treated surfaces or by external fields. The least ordered liquid crystal phase, the nematic, exhibits orientational order that can be easily transferred onto carbon nanotubes dispersed in it. The alignment of the carbon nanotubes can be demonstrated by polarized Raman spectroscopy. Carbon nanotubes not only well integrate in the matrix but also, even at very low concentration, have a detectable effect on the liquid crystal properties that can be very attractive for display applications. The presence of big aggregates of carbon nanotubes, on the other hand, interfere strongly with the switching behaviour of the liquid crystal, as we can show following the local switching of liquid crystal molecules with Raman spectroscopy.

Several propargylic trichloroacetimidates have been prepared and their reactions with gold catalysts studied. Only with the propargyl and the 1‐methylpropargyl substituent was a selective cyclization observed; with gold(III) chloride in acetonitrile only the product of a fast hydroamination to 4‐methylene‐4,5‐dihydrooxazoles was obtained, in chloroform the slower subsequent aromatization could not be prevented which delivered the oxazoles after long reaction times. Up to 3333 turnovers could be reached. With gold(I) catalysts in chloroform or dichloromethane selective hydroamination to 4‐methylene‐4,5‐dihydrooxazoles without subsequent aromatization was exclusively observed. The gold(I) catalysts also allowed chemoselective cycloisomerization of N‐propargylcarboxamides to 5‐methylene‐4,5‐dihydrooxazoles. (© Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2006)