Formation of a Double Diamond Cubic Phase by Thermotropic Liquid Crystalline Self-Assembly of Bundled Bolaamphiphiles.
A quaternary amphiphile with swallow-tail side groups displays a new bicontinuous thermotropic cubic phase with symmetry Pn3‾ m and formed by two interpenetrating networks where cylindrical segments are linked by H bonds at tetrahedral junctions. Each network segment contains two bundles, each containing 12 rod-like mesogens, lying along the segment axis. This assembly leads to the first thermotropic structure of the "double diamond" type. A quantitative geometric model is proposed to explain the occurrence of this rare phase.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK.
Xiangbing
X
Zeng
Institute of Chemistry, Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, 06120, Halle, Germany.
Marko
M
Prehm
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK. g.ungar@sheffield.ac.uk.|Department of Physics, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, 310018, Hangzhou, P.R. China. g.ungar@sheffield.ac.uk.
Goran
G
Ungar
Institute of Chemistry, Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg, 06120, Halle, Germany. carsten.tschierske@chemie.uni-halle.de.
Carsten
0000-0002-4163-3272
C
Tschierske
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK. feng.liu@xjtu.edu.cn.|State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, P.R. China. feng.liu@xjtu.edu.cn.
Feng
F
Liu
amphiphiles; block copolymers; liquid crystals; phase transitions; self-assembly