From smectic to columnar phase of polypedal liquid crystals based on tetrathiafulvalene/1,3-dithiol-2-thione and cholesterol

Bipedal 1,3-dithiole-2-thiones attached two cholesteryl through a ω-thioalkanoyloxy spacer of varying length were synthesized. The bipedals were easily transformed to the appropriate tetrapedal tetrathiafulvalene derivatives by self-coupling reaction in net triethyl phosphite. All the synthesized compounds exhibit mesogenic phases in a wide temperature region, no crystallization but vitrifying to form glassy mesogens during cooling from the isotropic melt. The liquid crystals with shorter spacer (n=2–6) exhibited only a smectic A phase and those with the longest spacer (n=7) exhibited only a hexagonal columnar. In these series, the molecular packing depended on the length of spacers.