The influence of multiple alkyl chains on mesomorphic and photophysical properties of diphenylacrylonitrile liquid crystals

ABSTRACT

For the purpose of studying the influence of the number of alkyl chains on mesomorphic and photophysical properties of aggregation-induced emission liquid crystals, the novel diphenylacrylonitrile derivatives 6–9 with 2–5 alkyl chains were prepared in yields of 80%–86%. The studies suggested that the number of alkyl chains influenced greatly on both mesomorphic properties and aggregation-induced emission fluorescence. The four or five alkyl chains on diphenylacrylonitrile liquid crystals were favourable for the ordered hexagonal columnar mesophase. The three or four alkyl chains contributed to high fluorescence. The four alkyl chains on diphenylacrylonitrile derivatives were the optimised number for producing the ordered columnar liquid crystalline phase and high fluorescence.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Diphenylacrylonitrile
• mesophase
• fluorescence
• columnar
• alkyl chain

Acknowledgments

Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 21406036), Fujian Science and Technology Project (No. 2019N0010), Fuzhou science and technology project (2018-G-44), and Undergraduate innovation program of FJNU (2020) were greatly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [21406036]; Fujian Science and Technology [2019N0010; 2018-G-44]; and Undergraduate innovation program of FJNU [2020].