Achiral flexible liquid crystal trimers exhibiting gyroid-like surfaces in chiral conglomerate phasesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c7sm01499f

Chiral conglomerate phases have attracted much attention not only for the spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking but also for their nanostructures. We investigated both surface and bulk structures of a homologues series of an achiral liquid crystal trimer I-(n,m) exhibiting soft crystalline chiral conglomerate phases by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The trimers were found to form bicontinuous networks. In particular, trimer I-(9,9) exhibited a single gyroid-like surface accompanying periodic distribution of dimples with a size of about 100 nm. It showed a sponge-like structure in the bulk of the material. The twist conformation of the flexible trimer I-(n,m) can cause layer deformation, which produces bicontinuous networks exhibiting optical activity. An achiral flexible trimer exhibits a gyroid-like surface and a sponge-like structure in the bulk of the material.