0000000000358733
AUTHOR
U. Sohling
New amphiphilic terphenyl liquid crystals for the preparation of highly ordered ultrathin films
Four new amphiphilic liquid crystals have been synthesized, in which terphenyl was used as the mesogenic unit. In order to enable the formation of Langmuir Monolayers at the air/water-interface, the molecules were equipped with slightly polar headgroups such as esters or a carboxylic acid group. All compounds can be transferred onto solid substrates. In addition, it is possible to prepare freely suspended films of at least one compound in the temperature range of the smectic phases. The phases of the different states, bulk, monolayer, freely suspended film, and Langmuir-Blodgett multilayers have been investigated by means of monolayer isotherms, optical textures, differential scanning calor…
Textures in hexatic films of nonchiral liquid crystals: Symmetry breaking and modulated phases
Novel modulated textures, such as stripes and multiarmed star defects, have been observed in freely suspended films of nonchiral liquid crystals just below the smectic-$C$ to hexatic phase transition. Detailed studies using depolarized reflection microscopy suggest that the stripes are locally chiral surface splay domains of the smectic-$L$ phase, a tilted hexatic not previously identified in thermotropic liquid crystals. Line defects which form additional domain walls in the hexatic lattice lead to characteristic modulations of the basic one-dimensional stripe pattern. Inside thick circular islands, for example, stripes form circumferentially and the lines form centered 12-armed stars, res…
Langmuir-Blodgett Mono- and Multilayer Assemblies of Amphiphilic Liquid- Crystalline n-Alkyl-4′-n-alkoxybiphenyl-4-carboxylates. I
Five n-Alkyl-4′-Alkoxy-biphenyl-4-carboxylates were investigated as Langmuir monolayers at the air/ water interface and as Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films on solid supports. All five compounds form stable monolayers at the air/water interface and can be transferred onto solid supports yielding LB-films, whose structures and kinetic behavior strongly depend on the headgroup. The structures of the LB-films were investigated by means of optical textures and X-ray diffraction and compared with the structures of the corresponding bulk phases which were investigated by means of Differential Scanning Calorimetry and X-ray powder diffraction. The LB-films of the acid and the two methyl esters exhibit …