GISAXS in the study of supramolecular and hybrid liquid crystals

The use of grazing incidence small and intermediate angle X-ray scattering in the study of structure and alignment of thermotropic liquid crystals is illustrated on selected examples. These include columnar LC phases of a star-shaped mesogen, several honeycomb phases of T-shaped and X-shaped bolaamphiphilic LCs, and gold nanoparticles coated with mesogenic ligands. Sharp Bragg reflections from systems with 2-d and 3-d periodicities are obtained through annealing. Due to nearly perfect surface alignment in most cases, indexing of complex diffraction patterns is facilitated. Honeycomb cells with deformed hexagonal cross-sections, as well as kagome lattice, are shown. The tilt of the reciprocal lattice is shown to help establish the correct structure in the case of the stretched hexagonal honeycombs and the rhombohedral arrays of ordered strings of gold nanoparticles.