Reticular-Chemical Approach to Soft-Matter Self-Assembly: Why Are srs and noh Nets Realized in Thermotropics?

Abstract

Interface geometry and skeletal graphs are two complementary characterizations of micro-phase separated organizations in soft matter. This paper explores the possibility of analyzing the latter instead of the former to gain insight into aggregation structures. Analyses of the ideality of vertices geometry (closeness to equiangular three-coordination) and the spatial homogeneity of the vertex distribution strongly suggest that the pair of noh nets, recently proposed for thermotropic liquid crystals of rodlike molecules without the interface between counter-chiral domains, is beneficial besides the srs twins if cubic symmetry is presumed as an experimental input.

Self-assembly, Liquid crystal, Network