Racemic Assembly of Octahedral Metallomesogens via Δ-Λ Chiral Interaction: Detection of Novel VCD Signals in Quasi-Racemate.

The liquid crystalline columnar assemblies have been developed by using racemic metal complexes with Δ, Λ chirality (M-C8, M = Ru or Ir) as mesogens. A racemic M-C8 exhibits rectangular columnar (Col) and hexagonal columnar (Col) phases upon cooling from their isotropic phases, which are analyzed by the combination of grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GI-XRD) measurements and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. In the Col phase, with lattice parameter a = 3.

Visualizing the helical stacking of octahedral metallomesogens with a chiral core.

A combination of grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction and molecular dynamics simulation studies led to the visualization of the stacking structure of a helical columnar liquid crystal formed by enantiopure octahedral metallomesogens with ΔΛ chirality. The helical structure was elucidated as a hybrid of two major proposed structures.