Two concepts have been developed for the design of [60]fullerene-containing thermotropic liquid crystals, namely, the covalent and non-covalent concepts. In the covalent approach, C60 was functionalized with liquid-crystalline addends (malonate and aldehyde derivatives) by applying either the Bingel reaction or the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction. In the non-covalent approach, a liquid-crystalline inclusion complex was obtained from mesomorphic cyclotriveratrylene (CTV) derivatives and C60. All of the covalent C60 derivatives showed smectic A phases. In one case, an additional nematic phase was detected. The [C60⊂(CTV)2] complex gave rise to nematic-like and cubic phases. The covalent and non-covalent approaches demonstrate the various possibilities for C60 to give rise to mesomorphic materials.
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Chuard et al. (2002) studied this question.