Emerging nanoscience with discotic liquid crystals

Discotic liquid crystals (DLCs) are one-dimensional organic semiconducting materials and represent new low cost, rejuvenating materials in optoelectronics. The development of novel supramolecular materials based on liquid crystals (LCs) hybridized with various metallic, semiconducting, and carbon-based materials with optimized functionalities on the nanometer scale attracted much attention in liquid crystal nanoscience. The ability to combine supramolecular liquid crystalline chemistry with nanoscience is very attractive for several reasons. This review focuses on our recent advances in discotic liquid crystal nanoscience. Driven by the self-assembly of both liquid crystals and nanostructures, LC–nanomaterial nanocomposites (LC–NCs) are spontaneously formed through molecular self-organization at the nanometer scale. The careful design of different LC–NCs through enhanced LC properties opened a new era for organic electronics. A brief introduction to LCs is presented with emphasis on DLCs, which is followed by recent developments in the self-assembly of various nanostructures in discotics. We focus on how nanostructures can be self-assembled in such supramolecular materials so that self-organizing functional systems of discotics can be created with tuned physical properties, such as the thermal stability, optoelectronic and dielectric parameters, and response time, in LCs. We conclude this review by discussing the further development of nanoscience with LCs and applications in organic electronics.