A series of organosilane liquid crystals and their application for the preparation of structurally colored organic–inorganic hybrid silica films

ABSTRACT

A series of organosilane liquid crystals (OSn) with different alkoxy chain lengths were synthesised. Both enantiotropic nematic and SmC phases were identified. With increasing the alkoxy chain length, SmC phase is feasible to be formed. Both the clearing points and SmC-nematic transition temperatures show odd-even effects. Small angle X-ray scattering characterisation indicated that the SmC phase of OS6 showed a mono-layered structure. Cholesteric liquid crystal mixtures were prepared using OS1, a bola-type organosilane (Bola-1) and a chiral dopant. After polycondensation under an acidic condition, structurally coloured organic–inorganic hybrid silica films were obtained. With increasing the weight ratio of Bola-1/OS1, the reflection band of the film shifted to short wavelength.

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystal
• organosilane
• structural colour
• molecular packing structure

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Scientific and Technologic Infrastructure of Suzhou (SZS201905) and the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (20KJA430009).