Conformational and Orientational Determination from Dipolar Couplings in a Weakly Ordering Organic-Based Lyotropic and a Strongly Ordering Thermotropic Liquid Crystal

Abstract

A weakly ordering organic-based lyotropic phase and a strongly ordering nematic liquid crystal have been used as NMR media for a parallel study of the conformation and orientational order of the same solute, trans-stilbene. A careful comparison allows to figure out some interesting conclusions on accessibility and precision of the experimental data and reliability and accuracy of the conformational descriptions into these two kinds of mesophases.

Keywords:

• NMR spectroscopy
• Dipolar Couplings
• Stilbenoids
• Liquid crystals
• Conformational analysis
• Orientational order

Funding

The present work has been supported by the “L’Oréal Italia per le Donne e la Scienza” program through the fellowship of M. E. Di Pietro. Moreover, G. Celebre, G. De Luca and M. E. Di Pietro thank University of Calabria and MIUR PRIN 2009 for financial support.