The effects of bending sites on unconventionally shaped hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals

Angular mesogenic structures of hydrogen-bonded supramolecules have been constructed from a 1:1 molar ratio of 3(or 4)-decyloxybenzoic acid, MA (or PA), mixing either with trans-4-alkoxy-3'(or 4')-stilbazoles, CnM (or CnP), or with their analogous N-oxides (CnMO and CnPO) to form the hydrogen-bonded (H-bonded) complexes CnPPA, CnPMA, CnMPA, CnPOPA, CnPOMA and CnMOPA. By controlling the relative bending position of the H-bonded complexes, the variety of supramolecules offer new molecular structures of different linearities. By means of these bending effects we are able to tune the shape of the molecular architecture and thus to modify molecular packing as well as mesogenic properties. New liquid crystalline properties are introduced by the nonlinear effects of molecular geometry, and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns have confirmed their novel molecular architectures.