Langmuir–Blodgett assembly of bent-shaped rigid amphiphiles into spiral rings

Alignment by Langmuir/Schaefer Monolayers of Bent-Core Liquid Crystals

“…3a (top), shows a ring formation. Such ring formations have been seen in films of many different types of molecules [22][23][24][25]. The closest analogy is the similar structures previously reported by Liu et al, [25] with a very different bent-core molecule at similar surface pressures.…”

“…Such ring formations have been seen in films of many different types of molecules [22][23][24][25]. The closest analogy is the similar structures previously reported by Liu et al, [25] with a very different bent-core molecule at similar surface pressures. These authors conclude that the ring structures form when a bent-core molecule has a sufficiently long terminal chain that the film has enough fluidity to form a nematic-like arrangement, which is disrupted by disclinations produced by the molecular shape, resulting in a spiral conformation.…”

“…2) reveal that the amphiphilic molecules used in this work (Z4 and Z10) make much more stable monolayers than the ones previously studied (Bc2Cl): the area/molecule where the surface pressure starts rising, known as the coarea, for the amphiphilic pair is almost the same at around ∼0.5 nm 2 , corresponding to a film thickness of ∼2 nm, and twice as high coarea for the symmetric BCLC mesogen at ∼0. 25 corresponding to a film thickness of 7 nm. The latter estimated film thickness indicates the presence of multilayering.…”

Super-porous nanocomposite PNIPAm hydrogels reinforced with titania nanoparticles, displaying a very fast temperature response as well as pH-sensitivity

“…The latter three effects are achieved with chemically modified PNIPAm. The stimuliresponsivity of PNIPAm opens various potential application fields, including mechanical actuators [9,10], artificial muscles [11,12], components of artificial organs [13][14][15], controlled drug release [16,17], enzyme immobilization [18,19], solute extraction and separation [20], or nanovalves (e.g. PNIPAm particles in silica: [21]).…”

Preparation and Self‐Assembly of a 2:1 Polyoxometalate‐Fullerene C60 Shape Amphiphile

“…One of the attractive directions to engineer the structures of the amphiphiles is to tune the rigidity of the building blocks. Earlier investigations show that the presence of small rigid functional groups can heavily influence the aggregation behavior of the amphiphiles, leading to the formation of aggregates with unique structures and/or properties . Recently, nanometer‐sized rigid functional groups which are termed molecular nanoparticles (MNPs) have been successfully integrated with flexible alkyl chains.…”