Nature of the mesophase of a conducting charge transfer complex : neither discotic nor calamitic

Abstract

We describe the structure of the mesophase of a conducting charge transfer complex formed by a donor substituted by four long paraffinic chains and TCNQ as acceptor. In the mesophase the donor cores remain in stacks with a short core-to-core distance (3.6 A). The presence of paraffinic chains favours a layer structure, the stacks being localized in the lamellae and TCNQ likely filling the space between stacks. Therefore the organization in this mesophase is intermediate between those of smectic and columnar discotic liquid crystals