Abstract
Ionic liquids are ambient-temperature isotropic liquids composed of only cations and anions. Their applications as electrolytes in ionic devices as well as solvents for organic reactions have attracted much attention. For further functionalization of ionic liquids, we have introduced liquid-crystalline structure and properties into these materials. A new class of low-dimensional ion-conductors has been obtained by using liquid-crystalline ionic liquids. The enhancement of ionic conductivity and anisotropy has been induced by the formation of oriented ion-conductive pathways at the macroscopic scale.
