Liquid crystal phase common molecular features

Although liquid crystallinity is a phase characteristic and not a molecular property, some structural features are well assessed as being conductive to liquid crystal phase formation. Common to all these substances is the asymmetry of molecular shape that produces orientation-dependent interac-... 

Because of the existence of the quasi-hex-agonal lattice in the tilted hexatic phase, there are three possible molecular tilt directions, The molecular tilt points towards the nearest neighbor for the SmI phase, towards the next nearest neighbor for the SmF phase, and towards an intermediate site for the novel SmL phase (see Fig. 1). Thus the former two have a higher symmetry than the SmL phase, which was first discovered in a lyotropic liquid crystal system [87]. The most common tilted hexatic phases found in thermotropic liquid crystal compounds are SmI and SmF. As mentioned previously, the pseudo-hexagonal molecular arrangement which is the characteristic feature of the hexatic phase, was first identified for the SmI phase. 

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