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From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
A Columnar Liquid-Crystal Phase Formed by Hydrogen-Bonded Perylene Bisimide J-Aggregates
Stefanie Herbst1, Bartolome Soberats2, Pawaret Leowanawat1
1Universität Würzburg, Institut für Organische Chemie, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany.
Abstract:
A new perylene bisimide (PBI) dye self-assembles through hydrogen bonds and π-π interactions into J-aggregates that in turn self-organize into liquid-crystalline (LC) columnar hexagonal domains. The PBI cores are organized with the transition dipole moments parallel to the columnar axis, which is an unprecedented structural organization in π-conjugated columnar liquid crystals. Middle and wide-angle X-ray analyses reveal a helical structure consisting of three self-assembled hydrogen-bonded PBI strands that constitute a single column of the columnar hexagonal phase. This remarkable assembly mode for columnar liquid crystals may afford new anisotropic LC materials for applications in photonics.
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