Novel superstructure of nondiscoid mesogens: uneven-parallel association of half-disk molecules, 3,4,5-trialkoxybenzoic anhydrides, to a columnar structure and its one-directionally geared interdigitation.

Compact and simple nondiscoid mesogens, trialkoxybenzoic anhydrides 2-11 ((RO)(3)C(6)H(2)-CO-O-CO-C(6)H(2)(OR)(3), R = C(2)H(5), n-C(3)H(7), n-C(4)H(9), n-C(6)H(13), n-C(8)H(17), n-C(10)H(21), n-C(12)H(25), n-C(14)H(29), n-C(16)H(33), and (S)- and (R)-3,7-dimethyloctyl) were designed and synthesized, and their superstructures were investigated by polarized light microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, calculation (MM2 and AM1), circular dichroism spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. As the result, in the cases of 5-9 and 11, the half-disk molecules in the liquid crystal phases were self-assembled by the dipole-dipole interaction between their carbonyl groups to a column in which the molecules were piled up in an alternately antiparallel manner, and the columns were interdigitated each other. The observed interdigitations were highly directional in the perpendicular direction to the column axis.