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Updated: May 22, 2026

From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
Functional organic materials based on polymerized liquid-crystal monomers: supramolecular hydrogen-bonded systems
Dirk J Broer1, Cees M W Bastiaansen, Michael G Debije
1Laboratory of Functional Organic Materials and Devices, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Functional organic materials are of great interest for a variety of applications. To obtain precise functional properties, well-defined hierarchically ordered supramolecular materials are crucial. The self-assembly of liquid crystals has proven to be an extremely useful tool in the development of well-defined nanostructured materials. We have chosen the illustrative example of photopolymerizable hydrogen-bonding mesogens to show that a wide variety of functional materials can be made from a relatively simple set of building blocks. Upon mixing these compounds with other reactive mesogens, nematic, chiral nematic, and smectic or columnar liquid-crystalline phases can be formed that can be applied as actuators, sensors and responsive reflectors, and nanoporous membranes, respectively.
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