Supermolecular Liquid Crystals - Liquid Crystalline Functional Assemblies and Their Supramolecular Structures - page 12

Fig. 12 a The architecture of a supermolecule, and b the complex self-organized structure
of a supramolecular entity
Fig. 13 Template structure of a smart or functional supermolecular material
tional supermolecular materials is expected to have a strong impact on the
future development of materials science, as this area of research offers a pow-
erful alternative for managing the awkward gap in the length scale that exists
between top-down miniaturization and bottom-up nanofabrication.
1.2
The Self-Organization Process
The way in which supermolecules can self-organize is dependent to a large
degree on simple structural features, such as the density of the mesogenic
units attached to the periphery of the central scaffold, their orientation of at-