2024 AIChE Annual Meeting

(461f) Liquid Crystalline and Crystalline Assembly of Discrete Oligomers

Author

Here, we synthesize a series of precise, sequence-defined oligomers with backbones composed of main-chain mesogens bridged by flexible linkers. We find that these oligomers crystallize into sheets which then bend or twist to assemble into spherulites composed of scrolled lamellae, cylinders, or banded spherulites with locally defined chirality. These oligomers allow us to build a picture of crystallization that spans from a small-molecule description through structures typical of bent-core liquid crystal assembly to nearly polymeric crystallization into banded spherulites.