Chemical and physical aspects of recent bent-shaped liquid crystals exhibiting chiral and achiral mesophases

ABSTRACT

Bent-core liquid crystals (BLCs) are a class of thermotropic LCs that exhibit chiral and polar superstructures in achiral molecules. Progress in design and synthesis of novel bent-core architectures in search of unconventional properties enriched the field of BLCs. Here, we present a comprehensive review of the recent bent-shaped LCs, discuss relevant simulation and theoretical models, which draws a comparison to experimental results, survey the advances in the molecular design and structure-property correlation, and predict the future directions from chemical and physical perspectives. This review article is dedicated in commemoration of Prof. B K Sadashiva, a pioneer chemist who made a notable contribution to the field of bent-core liquid crystals.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Liquid crystals
• bent-core compounds
• mesophases
• polar
• physical properties

Acknowledgments

SK, VP, NY and AB thank IISER Mohali for fellowship. AB acknowledges UGC-CSIR for fellowship. SD and SKP acknowledge financial support from SERB Project CRG/2019/000425 and CRG/2019/000901/OC, respectively.

Disclosure Statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board [CRG/2019/000425,CRG/2019/000901/OC].