Orientaion of columnar liquid-crystalline macrocycle complexed with lithium ions toward anisotropic ion transporting materials

Abstract

One-dimensional columnar assembly of liquid-crystalline macrocycles can offer promising platform for anisotropic ion transportation in fluid materials. Herein, we discuss liquid-crystalline properties of a macrocycle composed of four carbazoles and four salphens. This macrocycle has a large inner cavity of 1 nm in diameter which is decorated with phenol groups. A 1:2 ion complex of the macrocycle with Li ions was prepared by neutralization between the phenolic hydroxy groups and two equivalent of LiOH. The lithium ion complex exhibited a rectangular columnar LC phase below 129 °C. Furthermore, the columns in the liquid crystalline phase were successfully oriented to the direction of flow alignment by shearing that was characterized using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurement at various temperature.