Stabilised columnar mesophases formed by 1: 1 mixtures of hexaalkoxytriphenylenes with a hexaphenyltriphenylene-based polymer

Sholto R. Mclaren, Daniel J. Tate, Owen R. Lozman, Georg H. Mehl, Richard J. Bushby*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The synthesis is reported for a main chain polymer in which the repeat units are 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexaphenyltriphenylene moieties linked through flexible dodecyl chains. In compositions with a series of 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexakis(alkoxy)triphenylenes (HATn) this new polymer forms stable hexagonal columnar liquid crystal phases. These are investigated in detail using optical polarised microscopy (OPM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In these mixtures, suppression of crystallisation and enhancement of the clearing temperatures leads to very wide liquid crystal ranges: much wider than those for the HATn materials on their own. For the longer chain HATn compounds (n = 12-16) a columnar rectangular phase is also observed. The enhancement of the liquid crystal phase range is attributed to stabilising complementary polytopic interactions between the planar aromatic moieties.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)5754-5763
    Number of pages10
    JournalJournal of Materials Chemistry C
    Volume3
    Issue number22
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Jun 2015

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