Highly elastic liquid crystals with a sub-nanonewton bending elastic constant mediated by the resident molecular assemblies

Satoshi Aya; Haruki Obara; Damian Pociecha; Fumito Araoka; Kunihiko Okano; Ken Ishikawa; Ewa Gorecka; Takashi Yamashita; Hideo Takezoe

doi:10.1002/adma.201304171

Highly elastic liquid crystals with a sub-nanonewton bending elastic constant mediated by the resident molecular assemblies

Adv Mater. 2014 Mar 26;26(12):1918-22. doi: 10.1002/adma.201304171. Epub 2014 Jan 21.

Authors

Satoshi Aya¹, Haruki Obara, Damian Pociecha, Fumito Araoka, Kunihiko Okano, Ken Ishikawa, Ewa Gorecka, Takashi Yamashita, Hideo Takezoe

Affiliation

¹ Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials, Tokyo Institute of Technology, O-okayama, Meguro, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan.

PMID: 24449478
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201304171

Abstract

A surprisingly high bending elastic constant (K33 ) is obtained in a newly synthesized compound shown here. Mixtures containing a few percent of this compound confirm the influence of the unusual K33 values, and show an improved electro-optic response. The origin of the huge K33 is discussed based on the formation of a smectic cluster structure formed in the nematic phase.

Keywords: X-ray diffraction; cybotactic clusters; elastic constant; electro-optic response; liquid crystals.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't