“…[11][12][13][14][15] It is clear that the successful design of new liquid crystal carbohydrates now requires an improved understanding of the empirical relationships between molecular structure and aggregation behaviour. With that aim, recently, we studied the transitional behaviour of a series of monosaccharides, the methyl-6-O-(n-acyl)-α-D-glucopyranosides, as a function of the alkyl chain length, n. [16] At sufficiently high values of n, the compounds exhibit thermotropic liquid crystallinity, specifically, a monotropic smectic A phase seen on cooling from the isotropic phase, and which can be supercooled by ca 30ºC prior to crystallising. On increasing the alkyl chain length further, liquid crystallinity is extinguished and this has been attributed to back folding of the alkyl chains which disrupts the packing of the molecules.…”