Side‐Branched Polyphiles and Polygonal Cylinder Phases

Playing with nanosegregation in discotic crown ethers: from molecular design to OFETs, nanofibers and luminescent materials

“…Despite the various efforts, which have been made in the area of crown ethers and acyclic oligo(ethylene oxides), one issue seems to be largely untapped, that is the study of lyotropic behaviour of such crown ether derivatives [34]. So we are sure that there is plenty of room for further exciting new discoveries.…”

Network Phases with Multiple-Junction Geometries at the Gyroid–Diamond Transition

“…The design of complex fluids and soft matter structures is a present challenge in supramolecular and polymer chemistry as well as in nano-science and touches the question of the development of biological relevant structures from aqueous fluids . Among them, self-assembled network structures play an important role in transmission of information, chirality, charges, and forces in all three spatial directions and provide porous and band-gap materials. − Self-assembled networks with cubic symmetry (Cub bi ) have been widely found in aqueous lyotropic and solvent-free (thermotropic) liquid crystals (LCs), , block copolymers, , colloids, cubosomes, ,, mesoporous materials, , and scaffolds or inorganic replicas. , These structures consist of two interlocked continuous networks and therefore involve two different continua, the networks and the continuum between them, and therefore they are considered as bicontinuous cubic phases. The networks are separated by a triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS). , The common TPMSs in these bicontinuous cubic phases are related to three types of coordination numbers (CNs) of the network junctions: CN = 3: Schoen’s G surface (DG, Ia 3̅ d , Q 230 , Figure a), CN = 4: Schwarz’s D surface (DD, Pn 3̅ m , Q 224 , Figure b) and CN = 6: Schwarz’s P surface (DP, Im 3̅ m , Q 229 , Figure c) .…”

“…In recent work, we reported about double network structures of DG (Figure d) and DD cubic liquid crystalline (LC) phases (Figure e) and the first single network analogues of the DD and DP cubic LC phases (SD, SP, see Figure h,f). , Besides these low-CN network phases, single network phases with higher CNs, among them a network with I-WP surface and CN = 8 ( Im 3̅ m , Q 229 , Figure g) and the first A15-like network with tetrahedral rod-packing and mixed CNs = 12, 14 ( Pm 3̅ n , Q 223 , Figure i), have also been discovered. These new network phases are formed by rod-like polyphiles with sticky end groups (e.g., glycerols) and a number of flexible side chains. , In these skeletal cubics, the rod parts of molecules join together by the sticky ends to form bundles, then the bundles fuse to networks with different CNs of the glycerol spheres at the junctions. − Around these networks, the alkyl chains fill the space. Although these network phases have morphologies similar to the classical bicontinuous cubic phases (Figures a–c and a), the networks are no more continuous, because they are composed of alternating π-conjugated rod bundles forming the connections and polar spheres at the junctions (Figures d–i and b).…”