Lord of The Crowns: A New Precious In The Kingdom of Clustomesogens

Clustomesogens are liquid crystalline hybrid materials containing anisometric transition metal cluster compounds. This class of nanomaterials discovered in Rennes in 2010 is now an integral part of liquid crystal nanoscience.

In this work published in Angewandte Chemie on July 10^th, alcali salts (K or Cs) of luminescent cluster compounds were synthesized by high temperature solid state chemistry and combined to crown-shaped organic discotic liquid crystals containing a 15C5 crown ether complexing center and flat aromatic peripheral units.

The resulting hybrids are homogeneous and stable up to high temperature despite the weakness of the supramolecular interactions binding both components. All hybrids show hexagonal columnar arrangements and strong Red‐NIR emission. Surprisingly, when chlorinated clusters are used instead of brominated ones, the mesophase stability is largely enhanced.

This work results from a fruitful collaboration partly financed by a DAAD-PHC Procope bilateral project between the University of Stuttgart (Department of organic chemistry, team of Prof. Sabine Laschat) and the University of Rennes (Institut des Sciences Chimiques de Rennes, Prof. Yann Molard and team CSM).

To know more : https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/anie.201806556

Financial support: PHC Procope “PLISE” n° 37689XA & ANR Clustomesogen ANR-13-BS07-0003-01