Toward rational design of complex nanostructured liquid crystals

An analogy of block copolymer micro‐segregation as a low‐molecular weight nanostructured liquid crystal (LC) was tested with recently found columnar and cubic phase‐forming LC molecules, to clarify the broader applicability of the analogy as a molecular design principle. We found that the copolymer analogy principle also works well for new micellar cubic phase‐forming molecules. For bicontinuous cubic phase‐forming 1,2‐bis(4′‐n‐alkoxybenzoyl)hydrazines (BABH‐n) compounds that cover a much broader core fraction range than that predicted by the copolymer analogy, we propose hierarchical preferential orientation as an additional mechanism for their cubic range broadening. For azo‐dichiral molecules that also do not fit with the above principle, we propose chiral segregation as an alternative origin for their cubic phase formation. DOI 10.1002/tcr.201000025