Game of Crowns: Na Is Coming! Red NIR-Emissive Hybrid Liquid Crystals Containing Discotic Crown Ethers and NaMoXCl (X = Cl or Br).

Molecular or supramolecular materials that can self-organize into columns such as discotic liquid crystals are of interest for several applications in the field of optoelectronics. We show in this work that red near-infrared (NIR)-emissive metal cluster compounds of general formula NaMoXCl (X = Cl or Br) can be readily complexed with discotic liquid crystals containing a crown ether. Three cavity sizes have been tested with crown ethers bearing 4, 5, or 6 oxygen atoms.

Merging liquid crystalline self-assembly and linear optical properties of merocyanines tailored donor units.

Aiming at merocyanine dyes with good linear optical and self-assembly properties, a series of rigid mono-, bi- and tricyclic merocyanines with - and -donor units as well as keto or malodinitrile acceptor units was prepared by a convergent approach. With particular focus on tailoring the donor unit, a selection of appropriate derivatives was investigated with respect to their dye properties in solution and in the bulk (UV/Vis, fluorescence, temperature-dependent fluorescence, lifetime). Determination of fluorescence quantum yields revealed the importance of the donor unit and the chromophore size.

Fluorenone imidazolium salts as novel de Vries materials.

In ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) tilted mesophases such as SmC required for electro-optic devices are quite rare. We report a design concept that induced the SmC phase and enabled de Vries-like behaviour in ILCs. For this purpose, we synthesized and characterized a library of ILC derivatives ImR(On,Ym)X which consist of a rigid central fluorenone core containing an alkoxy or thioether side chain and connected a flexible spacer to an imidazolium head group.

Lord of The Crowns: A New Precious in the Kingdom of Clustomesogens.

Replacing pure inorganic materials by functional organic-inorganic hybrid ones to lower production costs has become a major challenge, in particular for the optoelectronic industry. Adding nanostructuration abilities meanwhile preserving homogeneity is even more challenging for this class of new materials. Here we show that red-NIR emissive ternary molybdenum cluster salts can be assembled to liquid crystalline 15C5 crown ethers.