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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Unusual side-chain effects on charge-carrier lifetime in discotic liquid crystals
Jin Motoyanagi1, Yohei Yamamoto1, Akinori Saeki2
1ERATO-SORST Nanospace Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, 2-41 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 (Japan), Fax: (+81) 3-5841-7310 http://macro.chem.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Home.html.
Abstract:
When hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene (HBC) carries paraffinic side chains with ester-ether termini (1a-1c), a hexagonal columnar liquid-crystalline (LC) mesophase forms, which is characterized by a very wide temperature range (ca. 0-300 degrees C). The LC materials from these HBC derivatives show characteristic electronic properties with an extremely long photocarrier lifetime. For example, by means of a flash-photolysis time-resolved microwave conductivity technique, the photocarrier lifetime, observed for liquid-crystalline 1a, is as long as 14 ms, which is four-orders of magnitude longer than that of fully paraffinic HBC 4 (0.0011 ms). The maximum transient photoconductivities of liquid-crystalline 1a-1c are comparable to one another and also to those of HBCs without ester-ether terminals. Liquid-crystalline 1a exhibits an obvious photocurrent generation in response to light illumination.
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