Discotic liquid crystals in cylindrical confinement: Supramolecular architecture of LC nanorods

We have studied the influence of dopants and the polarity of the pore walls on the supramolecular architecture of a discotic model compound confined to self-ordered nanoporous alumina. A dominant planar core phase was found for high-energy pore walls consisting of alumina, whereas no apparent texture was present in case of pore walls coated with poly(p-xylylene). For doped systems a pronounced dependence of the texture on the pore diameter and the substitution pattern of the dopant was found. Proper selection of the dopant allows enhancing the planar texture the discotic exhibits in sub-50 nm pores. In addition to intensive structural investigations by X-ray scattering, preliminary results of molecular dynamic simulations of discotic molecules in cylindrical confinement are reported