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Updated: Apr 23, 2026

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
NMR of guest-host systems: 8CB in chiral nematic porous glasses
Alan P Manning1, Michael Giese, Andrea S Terpstra
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada.
Abstract:
Liquid crystals confined to porous materials often have different critical phenomena and ordering than in the bulk. Through the selection of pore size, structure and guest liquid crystal, these systems could enable a variety of functional materials for applications such as sensors and displays. A recent example of such a system is chiral nematic mesoporous films infiltrated with liquid crystal 4-cyano-4'-n-octylbiphenyl (8CB), which has reversible thermal switching of its optical bandgap. The optical bandgap is lost when the ordered 8CB guests are heated above ∼50 °C, where the 8CB becomes isotropic. In this study, we have used NMR cryoporometry and pulsed-field gradient diffusion measurements to determine the pore sizes and structures of various chiral nematic mesoporous silica and organosilica films. Temperature and orientation-dependent wideline (15)N NMR spectra of films infiltrated with (15)N-labelled 8CB guests show that the ordering of the 8CB mesogens is consistent with an average orientation parallel to the chiral nematic pore axes. Inclusion of a large, orientation-dependent shift was necessary to fit the spectra, probably due to susceptibility differences between the 8CB guests and the organosilica host.
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