Remarkable effect of pre-organization on the self assembly in chiral liquid crystals

In this article, liquid crystal phases possessing a helical molecular assembly, including frustrated three dimensional (3D) structures, are overviewed. Then, the chirality‐originated superstructures in liquid crystals studied by the author are reviewed. The importance of the concept of “pre‐organization” is highlighted, thus, molecular design producing a strong chiral effect has been proposed. Dichiral twin materials have been prepared systematically based on this concept, and correlation between molecular architectures and resulting frustrated liquid crustal phases, such as smectic blue, cubic, tetragonal smectic Q, and sponge phases, has been investigated. An electrically induced anisotropic birefringent structure in the chiral isotropic phase and a photoinduced 3D‐3D phase transition in the smectic Q phase are introduced as possible application on the basis of the frustrated chiral 3D structured liquid crystal phases. A new type of chiral effect inducing the structural anisotropy in the 3D cubic structure of soft material is also described. © 2010 The Japan Chemical Journal Forum and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Chem Rec 9: 340–355; 2009: Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI 10.1002/tcr.200900029 Chirality is an important element in the fields of biology, chemistry, and physics. Especially, the effect of chirality on the nature of soft materials is one of the most attractive research subjects. Liquid crystal is one of the soft materials, in which chirality has a striking effect on the aggregation styles of consisting molecules. In this account, novel and mysterious chiral liquid crystal molecular organizations are introduced, and possible new applications proposed.