Effect on bicontinuous cubic phase formation of introducing chain asymmetry into siloxane-containing liquid crystalline compounds.

Abstract

In our group, we have been systematically studying siloxane-containing liquid crystalline compounds that form the bicontinuous cubic (Cub) liquid crystal phase. Very recently, we have focused on effects of molecular asymmetry and found that the Cub phase is maintained for a longer time when asymmetry is introduced into the core part of the molecule. In this study, we synthesized the novel siloxane-containing liquid crystalline compound with asymmetry introduced into the chain part of the molecule and investigated effect of asymmetry on the Cub phase formation.