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Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications
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Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 4987

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Alfonso Martinez-Felipe

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
Interests: liquid crystals; polymers; hydrogen bonding; supramolecular chemistry; Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy - FT-IR; thermal analysis; dielectric spectroscopy; fuel cells; electrolytes; ionic conductivity; light-responsive materials

Special Issue Information

Dear colleague,

Liquid crystals continue to attract research interest, and the latest fundamental investigations feed new developments of functional materials with exciting properties. Due to their capability to yield fluid nanostructures, liquid crystals can be considered as “living” materials, capable of responding to external stimuli. To date, liquid crystals are extremely attractive for optoelectronic applications, quantum technologies, sensors, actuators, formulations for controlled release, and many more. With the aim to further promote science and technology of liquid crystals, it is a real pleasure to host this Special Issue on Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications. The Issue will cover feature papers, research manuscripts and reviews, boosting forefront research in liquid crystals. Due to the inherent multidisciplinary nature of the field, we expect and will welcome contributions with different focuses, including: chemistry, physics, mathematical modelling, measuring techniques, and engineering applications. We are sure that the topics covered will promote further advances in liquid crystals and their applications and will be of great interest for researchers in soft materials.

Dr. Alfonso Martinez-Felipe
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Liquid crystals
  • Soft matter
  • Nanostructured materials
  • Supramolecular chemistry
  • Liquid crystalline polymers

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 4207 KiB  
Article
Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
by Shiwei Chen, Jinliang Zhang, Huilong Liu, Tongyue Qiu, Haoxiang Tang and Zunmin Zhang
Molecules 2022, 27(21), 7433; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/molecules27217433 - 01 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1117
Abstract
Rational design of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC)-based sensors utilizing different mesophases holds great promise to open up novel detection modalities for various chemical and biological applications. In this context, we present a dissipative particle dynamics study to explore the unique anchoring behavior of [...] Read more.
Rational design of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC)-based sensors utilizing different mesophases holds great promise to open up novel detection modalities for various chemical and biological applications. In this context, we present a dissipative particle dynamics study to explore the unique anchoring behavior of nematic and smectic LCs at amphiphile-laden aqueous-LC interface. By increasing the surface coverage of amphiphiles, two distinct anchoring sequences, a continuous planar-tilted-homeotropic transition and a discontinuous planar-to-homeotropic transition, can be observed for the nematic and smectic LCs, respectively. More importantly, the latter occurs at a much lower surface coverage of amphiphiles, demonstrating an outstanding sensitivity for the smectic-based sensors. The dynamics of reorientation further reveals that the formation of homeotropic smectic anchoring is mainly governed by the synchronous growth of smectic layers through the LCs, which is significantly different from the mechanism of interface-to-bulk ordering propagation in nematic anchoring. Furthermore, the smectic LCs have also been proven to possess a potential selectivity in response to a subtle change in the chain rigidity of amphiphiles. These simulation findings are promising and would be valuable for the development of novel smectic-based sensors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications)
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13 pages, 3715 KiB  
Article
Wide Nematogenic Azomethine/Ester Liquid Crystals Based on New Biphenyl Derivatives: Mesomorphic and Computational Studies
by Fowzia S. Alamro, Dina A. Tolan, Ahmed M. El-Nahas, Hoda A. Ahmed, Mohamed A. El-Atawy, Nada S. Al-Kadhi, Saadullah G. Aziz and Mohamed F. Shibl
Molecules 2022, 27(13), 4150; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/molecules27134150 - 28 Jun 2022
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 1380
Abstract
The thermal stability and mesomorphic behavior of a new biphenyl azomethine liquid crystal homologues series, (E)-4-(([1,1′-biphenyl]-4-ylmethylene)amino)phenyl 4-(alkoxy)benzoate, In, were investigated. The chemical structures of the synthesized compounds were characterized using FT-IR, NMR, and elemental analyses. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy [...] Read more.
The thermal stability and mesomorphic behavior of a new biphenyl azomethine liquid crystal homologues series, (E)-4-(([1,1′-biphenyl]-4-ylmethylene)amino)phenyl 4-(alkoxy)benzoate, In, were investigated. The chemical structures of the synthesized compounds were characterized using FT-IR, NMR, and elemental analyses. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy were employed to evaluate the mesomorphic characteristics of the designed homologues. The examined homologues possessed high thermal stability and broad nematogenic temperature ranges. Furthermore, the homologues were covered by enantiotropic nematic phases. The experimental measurements of the mesomorphic behavior were substantiated by computational studies using the density functional theory (DFT) approach. The reactivity parameters, dipole moments, and polarizability of the studied molecules are discussed. The theoretical calculations demonstrated that as the chain length increased, the polarizability of the studied series increased; while it did not significantly affect the HOMO–LUMO energy gap and other reactivity descriptors, the biphenyl moiety had an essential impact on the stability of the possible geometries and their thermal as well as physical parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications)
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14 pages, 2636 KiB  
Article
Synthesis, Phase Behavior and Computational Simulations of a Pyridyl-Based Liquid Crystal System
by Fowzia S. Alamro, Hoda A. Ahmed, Saheed A. Popoola and Asmaa Aboelnaga
Molecules 2021, 26(21), 6416; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/molecules26216416 - 24 Oct 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 1670
Abstract
A homologous set of liquid crystalline materials (Tn) bearing Schiff base/ester linkages were prepared and investigated via experimental and theoretical techniques. Terminal flexible groups of different chain lengths were connected to the end of phenylbenzoate unit while the other end of [...] Read more.
A homologous set of liquid crystalline materials (Tn) bearing Schiff base/ester linkages were prepared and investigated via experimental and theoretical techniques. Terminal flexible groups of different chain lengths were connected to the end of phenylbenzoate unit while the other end of molecules was attached to the heterocyclic pyridine moiety. The molecular structures of the designed molecules were evaluated by FT-IR, NMR spectroscopic analyses, whereas their mesomorphic properties were investigated by polarized optical microscopy (POM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). They all exhibited dimorphic properties with the exception of the members having the shortest and longest terminal flexible chains (n = 6 and 16), which were monomorphic. The T16 derivative was further found possessing purely smectic A (SmA) mesophase while others have their lengths covered by nematic (N) phase. Moreover, the computational evaluation of the azomethine derivatives was carried out using a DFT approach. The polarity of the investigated derivatives was predicted to be appreciably sensitive to the size of the system. Furthermore, the Frontier molecular orbitals analysis revealed various distributions of electron clouds at HOMO and LUMO levels. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Liquid Crystalline Materials for Advanced Applications)
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