ABSTRACT
The majority of discotic liquid crystals belong to the monomeric class. Since the discovery of the ƒrstdiscoticliquidcrystalsderivedfrombenzenecore,mosteffortshavebeengearedtowardunderstandingthenatureofthemolecularparametersthatfavortheformationofdiscoticliquidcrystals andcontroltheirtransitiontemperatures.Accordingly,alargenumberofmonomericdiscoticliquid crystalshavebeendesigned,synthesized,andstudiedfortheirmesomorphismandtocomprehend the chemical structure-physical property relationships. To date, the number of discotic liquid crystalsderivedfrommorethan60differentcorescomestoabout3000.Thischapterpresentsthe synthesisandmesomorphicbehaviorofdiscoticmonomersderivedfromthesecores.Thechapter isdividedinto25sections.Sections2.1through2.14dealwiththechemistryandthermalbehavior ofdiscoticliquidcrystalsderivedfromaromaticcores.Discoticliquidcrystalsgeneratedfromheterocyclic cores are covered in Sections 2.15 through 2.24. Section 2.25 presents the chemistry and mesomorphism of discotic liquid crystals derived from saturated cores.
