In recent years the design of chemical structures of liquid-crystalline materials has developed rapidly, and in many cases changed radically. Since Reinitzer's days, liquid crystals have either been classed as rodlike or disclike, with combinations of the two leading to phasmidic liquid crystals. The discovery that materials with bent molecular structures exhibited whole new families of mesophases inspired investigations into the liquid-crystal properties of materials with widely varying molecular topologies-from pyramids to crosses to dendritic molecules. As a result of conformational change, supermolecular materials can have deformable molecular structures, which can stabilize mesophase formation, and some materials that are non-mesogenic, on complexation form supramolecular liquid crystals. The formation of mesophases by individual molecular systems is a process of self-organization, whereas the mesophases of supramolecular systems are formed by self-assembly and self-organization. Herein we show 1) deformable molecular shapes and topologies of supermolecular and self-assembled supramolecular systems; 2) surface recognition processes of superstructures; and 3) that the transmission of those structures and their amplification can lead to unusual mesomorphic behavior where conventional continuum theory is not suitable for their description.
Gold nanoparticles offer the possibility of creating metamaterials; however, such nanoparticles are not particularly stable. Conversely, liquid crystals offer the possibility of creating self-organizing and self-assembling materials, which can be designed to be relatively stable. Potentially, combining these two concepts could provide materials that can be induced to assemble in a controlled way and that would have unique optical properties. This article describes some of the groundwork made in the preparation of stable liquid-crystalline metamaterials and the investigation of their structures and physical properties. In particular, spherically substituted materials are found to be deformed into tactoids with anisotropic properties, most notably their dielectric anisotropies.
In den letzten Jahren hat sich das Design der chemischen Strukturen flüssigkristalliner Materialien stark und in vielen Fällen sogar radikal verändert. Seit Reinitzers Tagen wurden Flüssigkristalle entweder als stab‐ oder als scheibenförmig klassifiziert; Kombinationen davon führten zu phasmidischen Flüssigkristallen. Die Entdeckung, dass Materialien mit gebogenen Molekülstrukturen eine völlig neue Familie von Mesophasen bilden, hat den Fokus auf Substanzen mit einer großen Variationsbreite an Molekültopologien gerichtet: von Pyramiden zu Kreuzen und dendritischen Molekülen. Die Molekülstrukuren supermolekularer Materialien können durch Konformationsänderungen verformt werden können, was zu einer Stabilisierung der Mesophase führen kann, und Substanzen, die selbst nicht mesogen sind, können mesogene supramolekulare Komplexe bilden. Die Bildung von Mesophasen ist ein Prozess der Selbstorganisation, der bei supramolekularen Systemen auf zwei Ebenen stattfindet. In diesem Aufsatz wird gezeigt, dass 1) verformbare Molekülstrukturen und ‐topologien supermolekularer und selbstorganisierter supramolekularer Systeme, 2) Erkennungsprozesse an Grenzflächen von Superstrukturen und 3) die Übertragung und Amplifikation dieser Strukturen zur Bildung ungewöhnlicher Mesophasen führen können, die mit der konventionellen Kontinuumstheorie nicht ausreichend beschrieben werden können.
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