A Self-assembled Fluid Honeycomb of Nonsymmetric Hexagons Formed by Nine Molecules in the Circumference

Periodic tessellations of the 2D plane by nonsymmetric polygons are of particular interest for both the 2D Kelvin problem, which is critical to system linearity and elasticity, and reticular chemistry to diverse the topological varieties. Here, a new liquid crystalline honeycomb phase, representing a monohedral tiling by nonsymmetric hexagonal cells resulting from the soft self-assembly of nine consecutive end-to-end hydrogen-bonded p-terphenyl rods is reported. The new phase structure is characterized by POM, DSC as well as SAXS, with which the electron density map is reconstructed and discussed. The hexagonal cells are chiral in 2D space and give rise to a nano-scale honeycomb resembling a p2gg tiling pattern. The findings not only pave the way to novel geometric design of reticular self-assembled systems, but also provide nonsymmetric supramolecular motifs for 2D chiral science.