Molecular wires from discotic liquid crystals

Discotic liquid crystal (LC) can arrange in columnar structures along which electrical conduction occurs via ?? interaction between adjacent molecular cores. The efficiency of the conductivity is strongly dependent on the overlap of the orbitals of neighbor molecules and, in general, on the structural arrangements. The understanding of the factors that influence the organization is crucial for the optimization of the final conductive properties of the self-assembled columns. In this paper we present a study on the self-organization into molecular wires of a discotic LC using a solution based method. In particular, we focus on the effect of solvents used for preparing the LC solution. The resulting morphologies were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical microscopy, showing that diverse structures result from different solvents. With suitable conditions, we were able to induce very long fibers, with several tents of micrometer in length that, in turn, self-organize assuming a common orientation on a macroscopic scale. © 2014 SPIE.