Star-like liquid crystals

Discotic architectures that use a central triphenylene core with six peripheral triphenylene units also exhibit colunmar mesophases, and these are commonly called star-like liquid crystals. Compoimd 28 is a very large molecule that uses flexible spacers to attach peripheral triphenylene units to a central discotic core in a star-like manner. The hexagonal columnar phase of compound 28 has been identified as hexagonal. Such stractmes are ohgomeric and could almost be considered polymeric (see Chapter 5). 

The development of organic nematic liquid crystals of other than only calamitic molecular structures has brought forward valuable mat als of several disc-/star- or hoop-like shapes. The more than one hundred examples discussed here and compiled in six tables provide evidence for the successful research activities in this branch of scientific interest during the past twenty-five years. 

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