Functional Organic Materials Based on Polymerized Liquid‐Crystal Monomers: Supramolecular Hydrogen‐Bonded Systems

Abstract

Functional organic materials are of great interest for a variety of applications. To obtain precise functional properties, well‐defined hierarchically ordered supramolecular materials are crucial. The self‐assembly of liquid crystals has proven to be an extremely useful tool in the development of well‐defined nanostructured materials. We have chosen the illustrative example of photopolymerizable hydrogen‐bonding mesogens to show that a wide variety of functional materials can be made from a relatively simple set of building blocks. Upon mixing these compounds with other reactive mesogens, nematic, chiral nematic, and smectic or columnar liquid‐crystalline phases can be formed that can be applied as actuators, sensors and responsive reflectors, and nanoporous membranes, respectively.