Controlled orientation of porphyrins by molecular design in thermotropic liquid crystals: a time-resolved EPR study

Ronny Neumann, Muhamad Hugerat, Shalom Michaeli, Aliza Natt, Mazal Bernitz, Haim Levanon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The orientation of the porphyrin ring in nematic liquid-crystalline phases is shown to be controlled by modification of guest-host dynamics through molecular design. Thus, attachment of rod-like mesogenic residues or "arms" to α,α,α,α,-meso-tetrakis(o -aminophenyl)porphyrin yields the porphyrin, MesogenP, having molecular compatibility with standard liquid-crystalline compounds. Both the free-base and zinc porphyrin were photoexcited to the triplet state and detected by time-resolved EPR spectroscopy. The spectra show that the orientation, porphyrin ring parallel to the director, found for the simple tetraphenyl porphyrin, is inverted in the case of the MesogenP so that the porphyrin ring is perpendicular to the director in both frozen and fluid nematic phases.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)249-252
Number of pages4
JournalChemical Physics Letters
Volume182
Issue number3-4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2 1991

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to A. Regev for valuable comments on the manuscript. The research described herein was partially supported by US-Israel BSF (No. 88-00064), and by a DFG grant (HL). The Farkas Research Center is supported by the Minerva Gesellschaft fiir die Forschung, GmbH, Miinchen, Germany. This work is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph.D. degree (MH) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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