3B11 Liquid crystalline polymorphism, microstructures and phase transition behavior of polycatenar mesogens with a perfluorinated moiety

Abstract

A polycatenar compound having a bulky perfluorinated substituent and three long alkyl chains was synthesized and found to show unique liquid crystalline polymorphism of a cubic phase, a columnar phase and a smectic A phase as a function of temperature. Due to the high incompatibility between the perfluorinated substituent and the hydrocarbon moiety from both the steric and chemical points of view, the liquid crystalline phases exhibited nano-segregated structures. Moreover the isotropic phase was a micro-separated structure, and the isotropic to smectic A phase transition occurred continuously at the microscopic level, which is discussed with X-ray diffraction data.