Themed collection Editor’s Choice: Advances and New Avenues in Liquid Crystal Science

In this perspective, we presented our group’s journey to design biomaterials using LCEs and as inks for 3D printing. We addressed properties sought in a scaffold that address cells’ specific needs, and how we used the intrinsic properties of LCEs to influence on cell behavior.

This perspective reports on recent progress toward the development of an approach to a priori predict - both chirality “strength” and efficacy of chirality transfer from a chiral nanoshape solute to an achiral nematic environment.

This work reviews photoswitching of azobenzenes in soft and self-assembled materials, providing an outlook for smart soft matter design.

Two approaches have been developed to prepare liquid-crystalline J-aggregates based on naphthalene diimides.

Adding an NTB material to BPLC increases the thermal range of BPI. Further doping with QDs leads to the induction of BPIII, with a wide thermal range of 34 °C, spanning ambient and below/above ambient temperatures with enhanced display parameters.

The thermodynamic phase in which photopolymerisation is performed governs the morphological characteristics of a nematogen with hierarchal network feature possessing independent gelator and reactive monomer constituents.

Optically tunable and switchable reflection grating LC gels can be used in anti-counterfeiting materials for optical security and encryption. Reflection colors and patterns appear by applying an AC field and a DC field controls the holographic color of the samples.

The g_abs of the J-type stacking helix assembly induced by DiBTA was an order of magnitude larger than that of the H-type column assembly induced by DiBETA.

UV-Vis light irradiation induces a fast, bidirectional switching of thermal conductivity in doped liquid crystals.

Polyesterified amphiphilic β-cyclodextrin derivatives bearing functionalized tetraethylene glycols showed excellent abilities to self-assemble into stable hexagonal columnar mesophases with 1D ion conducting channels.

Novel calamitic mesogens with an azulene core show de Vries-like properties and a SmA re-entrance phase.

An anodized nanoporous aluminium (AAO/Al) transparent electrode for energy-efficient PDLC smart windows.

Cyclotriphosphazene-based discotic liquid crystals are reported exhibiting helicoildal columnar arrangement and fluorescence turn-on phenomenon.

Cellulose nanocrystals, surface-decorated with azobenzenes, are introduced as chiral solutes with molecular and morphological chirality and bestowed with the ability to photoswitch the helical pitch of induced chiral nematic liquid crystal phases.

We synthesized chiral dimeric chiral nematic (N*) liquid crystals bearing tri(p-phenylene vinylene) units and studied the carrier transport characteristics as well as the circularly polarized fluorescence in the N* phase of the liquid crystals.

The photoinduced molecular reorientation of nonlinear optical materials is a promising approach to cause the nonlinear optical effect used for developing next-generation self-modulating and optical switching devices.

π-Conjugated liquid-crystalline dimers consisting of two triphenylene mesogens connected through a rigid molecular bridge have been synthesized. Mesophases, gels and optical properties have been investigated as a function of the bridge nature.

A wheat leaf-like surface pattern emerged above the solid coating of fluorinated cholesteric liquid crystal polymer under actuation of one-side DC electric field, to trigger directional droplet motion for precise and low-energy droplet manipulation.

Bent-core and pyrene building blocks are revealed as a synergistic and versatile ‘tandem’ for the chemistry of luminescent supramolecular materials, guiding towards highly emissive liquid crystals, organogels and nanotubular systems, just by using the same molecule.

This study reports mesomorphic triphenylene-ethylammonium salts containing [MCl₄]²⁻ (M = Cu, Ni, Co, Mn) as counterion. The [NiCl₄]²⁻ group leads to combine mesomorphism, paramagnetism and thermochromism in the system.

Sterically crowded, shape-persistent star mesogens with three oligophenylenevinylene arms provide free space in which Blatter radical guests are incorporated by covalent bonds (esters) or supramolecular interactions (hydrogen bonds).

A newly synthesised liquid crystalline nitroxide radical with a terminal trifluoromethyl group exhibits a cybotactic nematic phase. EPR spectroscopy of the spin-labelled LC implies that molecules move into and out of the cybotactic clusters.

The installation of an aliphatic ring at the end of the alkyl chain for a family of 4-alkoxy-4′-cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals is shown to enhance clearing points and promotes the formation of smectic phases, relative to the linear parent materials.

We present a versatile synthesis method capable of creating triphenylene discotic liquids with enhanced control of the number and type of tails. The compounds obtained from this method include a discotic liquid crystal with unusually short methoxy tails.

Tethering of two shape mismatched donors and acceptor leads to an unusual mesogen design.

Multi-dimensional particle-like solitons are formed in a smectic A liquid crystal driven by electric fields. The solitons are localized deformations of smectic layers and travel perpendicular to the smectic layers with a constant speed.

A huge effect of a magnetic field on the layer spacing of smectic and polar smectic liquid crystalline phases of a diamagnetic bent-core mesogen is reported, which is opposite for the uniformly chiral compound and its racemic mixture.

Two homologous series of thioether-linked liquid crystal dimers with oppositely directed esters, viz. CBCOOnSCB and CBOCOnSCB, exhibit largely different helical pitches in the N_TB phase, which are ascribed to their molecular bend or biaxiality.

Ferroelectric nature in the N_CybC phase and anti-ferroelectric nature in the SmC_(I) and SmC_(II) phases.

The characterisation of a selection of novel, chiral supramolecular liquid crystals formed by hydrogen-bonding is reported; these are the first examples of the chiral twist-bend nematic phase (N*TB) induced by H-bonding through molecular recognition.