Liquid‐Crystalline Hybrid Materials Based on [60]Fullerene and Bent‐Core Structures

Abstract

What a core-ker! By the appropriate combination of promesogenic bent-core structures and the C(60) unit, lamellar polar liquid-crystal phases were induced. The supramolecular organization of the functional fullerene-based assemblies, the temperature range of the soft phase, the stabilization of the mesophase-like order at room temperature, and the molecular switching under an electric field can be tuned, depending on the molecular structure.

Controlling the crystalline three-dimensional order in bulk materials by single-wall carbon nanotubes

“…A viable strategy to overcome such drawbacks implies the use of liquid crystals. Notably, the fact that liquid crystalline behaviour evolves between isotropic and crystalline phases, facilitates the macroscopic control over the bulk materials and surfaces across all length scales [11][12][13] . Such advantages are, however, offset by elaborate synthetic protocols and the difficulties to attain liquid crystalline properties.…”

Programmed Hierarchical Hybrid Nanostructures from Fullerene‐Dendrons and Pyrene‐Dendrons

“…Considering the asymmetric molecular shapes as well as the molecular length of C 60 D and PD (3.4 and 4 nm, respectively), it is obvious that buckle‐like asymmetric C 60 D·PD building block should be self‐assembled by charge transfer complex and strong nanophase separation. Since the cross section of C 60 ·P (1 nm) is larger than that of total dendron (0.87 nm), one normally packed building block and two alternately packed building blocks can be fabricated . Thereby, two C 60 ·P complexes should adopt a zigzag monolayer conformation within the solvophobic layer for the efficient space filling.…”

“…Thus, a more desirable strategy, especially in the solid state, is to introduce liquid crystal (LC) functionality into the host and guest molecules . Chemically introduced LC dendrons, which show the self‐assembling ability and the structural anisotropy, are expected to control the well‐defined hierarchical nanostructures from unit cells to multilayer microdomains . Charge transfer complex determined by the shape and physical properties of the molecules is the main driving force that influences the host–guest binding and the molecular self‐assembly .…”

Fullerene‐Containing Liquid Crystals

“…In 2011, Blanca Ros and collaborators [15] reported the synthesis and characterization of a new class of nondendritic hybrid C 60 -containing bent-shaped molecules. Taking advantage of the compact packing induced by bent-core structures, they prepared innovative nondendritic liquid-crystalline fullerene-based materials of different C 60 /promesogenic-core ratios (1 : 1 in fulleropyrrolidine monoadducts 9 On heating, endothermic peaks corresponding to the crystalline-tomesomorphic and mesomorphic-to-isotropic phase transitions were detected for 10-12 (Table 6.2).…”