Benzene at 1GHz. Magnetic field-induced fine structure

The deuterium NMR spectrum of benzene-d6 in a high field spectrometer (1GHz protons) exhibits a magnetic field-induced deuterium quadrupolar splitting Δν. The magnitude of Δν observed for the central resonance is smaller than that observed for the (13)C satellite doublets Δν'. This difference, Δ(Δν)=Δν'-Δν, is due to unresolved fine structure contributions to the respective resonances. We determine the origins of and simulate this difference, and report pulse sequences that exploit the connectivity of the peaks in the (13)C and (2)H spectra to determine the relative signs of the indirect coupling, JCD, and Δν. The positive sign found for Δν is consonant with the magnetic field biasing of an isolated benzene molecule-the magnetic energy of the aromatic ring is lowest for configurations where the C6 axis is normal to the field. In the neat liquid the magnitude of Δν is decreased by the pair correlations in this prototypical molecular liquid.

Helix formation in linear achiral dendronized polymers: A computer simulation study

We present a molecular simulation study of the structure of linear dendronized polymers. We use excluded volume interactions in the context of a generic coarse grained molecular model whose geometrical parameters are tuned to represent a poly(paraphenylene) backbone with benzyl ether, Frechet-type dendrons. We apply Monte Carlo sampling in order to investigate the formation of packing-induced chiral structures along the polymer backbone of these chemically achiral systems. We find that helical structures can be formed, usually with defects consisting of domains with reversed helical handedness. Clear signs of helical arrangements of the dendrons begin to appear for dendritic generation g=4, while for g=5 these arrangements dominate and perfect helices can be observed as equilibrium structures obtained from certain types of starting configurations.

A simple theory of molecular organization in fullerene-containing liquid crystals

Systematic efforts to synthesize fullerene-containing liquid crystals have produced a variety of successful model compounds. We present a simple molecular theory, based on the interconverting shape approach [Vanakaras and Photinos, J. Mater. Chem. 15, 2002 (2005)], that relates the self-organization observed in these systems to their molecular structure. The interactions are modeled by dividing each molecule into a number of submolecular blocks to which specific interactions are assigned. Three types of blocks are introduced, corresponding to fullerene units, mesogenic units, and nonmesogenic linkage units. The blocks are constrained to move on a cubic three-dimensional lattice and molecular flexibility is allowed by retaining a number of representative conformations within the block representation of the molecule. Calculations are presented for a variety of molecular architectures including twin mesogenic branch monoadducts of C60, twin dendromesogenic branch monoadducts, and conical (badminton shuttlecock) multiadducts of C60. The dependence of the phase diagrams on the interaction parameters is explored. In spite of its many simplifications and the minimal molecular modeling used (three types of chemically distinct submolecular blocks with only repulsive interactions), the theory accounts remarkably well for the phase behavior of these systems.

Tilt order parameters, polarity, and inversion phenomena in smectic liquid crystals

The order parameters for the phenomenological description of the smectic-A to smectic-C phase transition are formulated on the basis of molecular symmetry and structure. It is shown that, unless the long molecular axis is an axis of twofold or higher rotational symmetry, the ordering of the molecules in the smectic-C phase gives rise to more than one tilt order parameter and to one or more polar order parameters. The latter describe the indigenous polarity of the smectic-C phase, which is not related to molecular chirality but underlies the appearance of spontaneous polarization in chiral smectics. A phenomenological theory of the phase transition is formulated by means of a Landau expansion in two tilt order parameters (primary and secondary) and an indigenous polarity order parameter. The coupling among these order parameters determines the possibility of sign inversions in the temperature dependence of the spontaneous polarization and of the helical pitch observed experimentally for some chiral smectic-C* materials. The molecular interpretation of the inversion phenomena is examined in the light of this formulation.