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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives
Published on: February 7, 2017
Enhanced optical activity by achiral rod-like molecules nanosegregated in the B4 structure of achiral bent-core
Taketo Otani1, Fumito Araoka, Ken Ishikawa
1Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1-S8-42, O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan.
Abstract:
Chirality in a mixture system consisting of bent-core 1,3-phenylene bis[4-(4-8-alkoxyphenyliminomethyl)benzoates] (P8-O-PIMB) and rod-like n-pentyl-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) molecules has been studied. Precise circular dichroism (CD) spectra using thin sample cells indicate mainly two characteristics: (1) the origin of CD signals is due to chiral-segregated bent-core molecules in the B(4) phase, where 5CB is in the isotropic phase; (2) the enhanced CD signal is detected in the B(X) phase, where 5CB is in the nematic phase. These results suggest that 5CB molecules are embedded in the network of helical nanofilaments formed by P8-O-PIMB and form helical superstructure with the same handedness as the helical nanofilaments in the B(X) phase, resulting in the giant CD signals.
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