Distinct differences in the nanoscale behaviors of the twist–bend liquid crystal phase of a flexible linear trimer and homologous dimer

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 116; no. 22; pp. 10698 - 10704
• Main Authors: Tuchband, Michael R., Paterson, Daniel A., Salamończyk, Mirosław, Norman, Victoria A., Scarbrough, Alyssa N., Forsyth, Ewan, Garcia, Edgardo, Wang, Cheng, Storey, John M. D., Walba, David M., Sprunt, Samuel, Jákli, Antal, Zhu, Chenhui, Imrie, Corrie T., Clark, Noel A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 28.05.2019; National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)
• Series: PNAS Plus
• Subjects: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; Dimers; heliconical; Homology; liquid crystal; Liquid crystals; Oligomers; Physical Sciences; PNAS Plus; RSoXS; Soft x rays; Temperature dependence; trimer; Trimers; twist–bend nematic; X-ray scattering; RSoXS; heliconical; trimer; liquid crystal; twist–bend nematic

We synthesized the liquid crystal dimer and trimer members of a series of flexible linear oligomers and characterized their microscopic and nanoscopic properties using resonant soft X-ray scattering and a number of other experimental techniques. On the microscopic scale, the twist–bend phases of the...