Preparation and Polymerization of Polymerizable Discotic Liquid Crystals Containing Hydrogen Bonds and Their Behavior in Nanochannels

Abstract

New photopolymerizable discotic liquid crystal was prepared by hydrogen bonds between a phloroglucinol core and peripheral 4-(4-alkoxyphenyl)pyridines containing acrylate unit. The liquid crystalline order of discotic mesophase was perfectly maintained by photopolymerization in the presence of photoinitiator during very short time of 10 sec. When the discotic complex was inserted into anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) nanopores, hydrogen bonds in the complex were broken probably due to the strong interaction between peripheral pyridine moieties and AAO surface inducing structural change in columnar order to the lamellar order.

Keywords:

• Anodic aluminum oxide
• discotic liquid crystal
• hydrogen bonding
• nanochannel
• photopolymerization

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2014R1A1A2057947).