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Updated: Feb 27, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Emergence of tilt in square honeycomb liquid crystals
Marco Poppe1, Changlong Chen2, Feng Liu2
1Department of Chemistry, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Kurt-Mothes-Str. 2, 06120 Halle, Germany. carsten.tschierske@chemie.uni-halle.de.
Abstract:
First liquid crystalline phases with tilted organization of rod-like aromatics in a square honeycomb structure were discovered. The developing tilt is temperature, chain length and chain volume dependent, and has a dramatic effect on the optical properties, occasionally leading to an inversion of birefringence. The observed effects of chain branching on tilt contributes to a general understanding of lateral chain engineering in tailoring the self-assembly of π-conjugated molecular rods.
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