Liquid crystalline dendrimers and polypedes

The purpose of this review article is to give an account of the various types of dendritic systems that form liquid-crystalline mesophases and to describe the way they are organized within supramolecular organizations. It is shown that tuning of the mesophase structure can be achieved by an appropriate molecular design depending upon the chemical nature of the terminal mesogenic groups, dendritic core and dendrimer generation. The division of the subject in this review is made by the nature of the dendritic scaffold. After a general introduction on dendrimers, supramolecular liquid-crystalline dendrimers are first discussed. Then, a large part of the review is devoted to side-chain liquid-crystalline dendrimers with different chemical skeletons. The section concerning main-chain liquid-crystalline dendrimers is divided into two parts, the willow-like and the octopus dendrimers. Liquid crystals based on other types of dendritic matrices are finally discussed, including shape-persistent dendrimers, metallodendrimers, fullerodendrimers, polypedes and rod-coil block co-dendrimers.