MONODISPERSE OLIGOMERIC LIQUID-CRYSTAL SUPERMOLECULES WITH DEFINED TOPOLOGY

This paper describes the synthesis and the characterisation of the pha se behaviour of series of siloxane and sissesquioxane based liquid cry stals. With increasing the size of the organo-silicone core an increas e of the glass and phase transition temperatures occurs. A systematic variation of the branching of the cores and the side-chains yields inf ormation about the structure-property relationship of these materials, e.g. cores with defined topology are found to exhibit lower glass tra nsition temperatures than comparable cyclic systems.