Efficient Syntheses of Star-Branched, Multifunctional Mesogens.

Star-branched molecular architectures lend themselves to convergent synthesis strategies for creating materials that combine three or more functional modalities, but these approaches require a core moiety with several reactive groups that are orthogonal to one another. The direct synthesis of three-arm, star-branched mesogens has been investigated via the Passerini three-component reaction to demonstrate how multicomponent reactions circumvent the need to identify and synthesize specialized branched core molecules.