1. Introduction
Amongst stable organic free radicals such as nitroxides, verdazyls, thioaminyls, a certain hydrazyl, phenoxyls, and carbon-centered radicals, nitroxide radicals (NRs) show outstanding thermodynamic stability ascribed to the delocalization of the unpaired electron over the N—O bond and thereby no dimerization (Aurich, 1989; Hicks, 2010). In fact, sterically protected NRs have found various practical applications in the field of materials science. The landmark is the discovery by Kinoshita et al. in 1991 of the first purely organic ferromagnet (
Thus, stable NR structures have been used as the spin source or the redox species to develop metal-free solid-state magnetic materials and spintronic devices, or polymer battery devices, respectively. However, the large electric dipole moment (ca. 3 Debye) of a nitroxyl group (N-O・) has never been utilized in these NR-based materials. In this context, with a view to exploiting metal-free magnetic or spintronic soft materials, we have been developing organic liquid-crystalline (LC) and ionic liquid (IL) NRs which can benefit from the unique magnetic and electric properties intrinsic to the NR structure.
Paramagnetic LC compounds have been expected to become novel advanced soft materials that can combine the optical and electrical properties of conventional LCs with the magnetic and electronic properties of paramagnetic compounds (Dunmur & Toriyama, 1999). The magnetic liquid crystals (LCs) are classified into two types; the majority were metal-containing LCs (metallomesogens) with permanent spins originating from transition (d-block) or lanthanide (f-block) metal ions in the mesogen core (Figure 2) (Hudson & Maitlis, 1993; Griesar & Haase, 1999; Binnemans & Gröller-Walrand, 2002; Piguet et al., 2006; Terrazi et al., 2006), while only several all-organic radical LC materials of the first generation were prepared before 2004 (Figure 3), because of the difficulty in the molecular design and synthesis which must satisfy the molecular linearity or planarity necessary for the existence of LC phases (rod-like or disk-like molecules, respectively) as well as the radical stabilization (Kaszynski, 1999; Tamura et al., 2008a, 2012). Moreover, endowing the magnetic LCs with chirality is expected to result in the emergence of unique magneto-electric or magneto-optical properties, intriguing magnetic interactions and so on in the LC state (Tamura et al., 2008b, 2012).
In 2004, the present authors reported the preparation and magnetic properties of the prototypic second generation of paramagnetic all-organic rod-like LC compounds 12, which contain a chiral cyclic NR (PROXYL) unit in the mesogen core and show various chiral and achiral LC phases over a wide temperature range (Figure 4) (Ikuma et al., 2004). In 2006, the chiral smectic C (SmC*) phase of (2
Meanwhile, with the aim of developing room-temperature ionic liquids (ILs) as another type of air-stable, metal-free magnetic soft materials which can act as redox materials or spin probes with molecular shape anisotropy, we designed and synthesized imidazolium compounds 14 containing a chiral PROXYL unit at some distance (Uchida et al., 2009a).
In this chapter, first we briefly introduce the first-generation of all-organic NR LCs, which were prepared before 2004. Then, we report the magnetic and electric properties of the second-generation of NR LCs of compounds 12 and 13, and the NR IL compounds 14.
2. First-generation of rod-like all-organic NR LCs
Only a few all-organic radical LC compounds have been prepared, most likely because the geometry and bulkiness of the radical-stabilizing substituents are detrimental to the stability of LCs, which requires molecular linearity or planarity (Kaszynski, 1999). Although several achiral rod-like organic LCs with a stable cyclic NR (DOXYL or TEMPO) unit as the spin source were prepared (Figure 3), their molecular structures were limited to those containing the NR unit within the terminal alkyl chain, away from the rigid core, and hence allowed the free rotation of the NR moiety inside the molecule, resulting in a decrease in the paramagnetic anisotropy (Δ
Chiral racemic and achiral compounds 5-7 were synthesized by Dvolaitzky et al. to use them as an LC spin-probe for EPR spectroscopic study. Racemic 7 showed stable achiral smectic phases such as SmA, SmC and SmE (Dvolaitzky et al., 1974, 1976a, 1976b). Their temperature dependence of the molar magnetic susceptibility (
Finkelmann et al. prepared chiral racemic radical polymer 8 which can retain the LC structure in the supercooled glassy phase to measure the magnetic properties of an LC structure at low temperatures (Allgaier & Finkelmann, 1994). The temperature dependence of the
Greve et al. synthesized the first LC compounds 9 and 10 with an
To prepare a supercooled glassy material and crystal polymorphs in the applied magnetic fields and to observe the change in the magnetic behavior accompanying the alteration in the solid-state structure, Nakatsuji et al. synthesized the achiral LC compound 11 (Nakatsuji et al., 2002). Although 11 showed the achiral nematic (N) phase within a narrow temperature range of 3 degree in the heating run, a small but distinct increase in
where
3. Second-generation of rod-like all-organic NR LCs
3.1. Molecular design and synthesis
The second-generation of chiral NR molecules 12 that could satisfy the following four mandatory requirements were designed and synthesized (Tamura et al., 2008a, 2008b, 2012).
Spin source: A nitroxyl group with a large electric dipole moment (ca. 3 Debye) and known principal
High thermal stability: A molecule with a 2,2,5,5-tetraalkyl-substituted pyrrolidine-1-oxy (PROXYL) unit is stable enough for repeated heating and cooling cycles below 150 C in the air.
Molecular structure: (a) To avoid the free rotation of the NR portion inside the molecule so as to maximize the Δ
Chirality: Since both chiral and achiral LCs are required for comparison of their optical and magnetic properties in various LC phases, the molecules should be chiral and both enantiomerically-enriched and racemic samples need to be available.
3.2. Magnetic properties
Since the magnetic properties such as Δ
3.2.1. Magnetic anisotropy of LC compounds
Similarly to Δ
where
Furthermore, the overall LC magnetic anisotropy (Δ
where N is the number of molecules.
Diamagnetism resides in all atoms. Particularly aromatic rings show a strong diamagnetic effect in applied magnetic fields. Therefore, the diamagnetic rod-like LC molecules orient themselves such that the axis with the most negative
3.2.2. Magnetic-field-induced molecular alignment
It is known that rod-like metallomesogens with high viscosity are not always suited for the investigation on the alignment of LC molecules by magnetic fields. In contrast, LC compounds 12 with low viscosity, low phase transition temperature, and known principal
First, the temperature-dependent Δ
Next, to identify the direction of molecular alignment in the bulk LC state under a weak magnetic field, the temperature dependence of the experimental
From these results and the calculated principal
To evaluate the
Thus, the
3.2.3. Magneto-LC effects
The possibility of a ferromagnetic rod-like LC material has been considered unrealistic due to the inaccessibility of long-range spin-spin interactions between rotating molecules in the LC state. However, low viscous all-organic rod-like LC materials with a stable NR unit in the rigid core may show unique intermolecular magnetic interactions owing to the swift coherent collective properties of organic molecules in the LC state.
a. Magnetic LCs with negative dielectric anisotropy (Δ
Interestingly, the present authors observed a nonlinear relationship (S-curve) between the applied magnetic field (
In this study, we could indicate that EPR spectroscopy is the much better means than SQUID magnetization measurement to evaluate the temperature dependence of the
where
where
b. Magnetic LCs with positive dielectric anisotropy (Δ
To examine the effects of Δ
c. Attraction of magnetic LC droplet by a permanent magnet
Furthermore, these radical LC droplets floating on water were attracted by a permanent magnet and moved freely on water under the influence of this magnet (Figure 5), whereas the crystallized particles of the same compounds never responded to the same magnet. The response of the LC droplets to the magnet also varied depending on the LC phase type, i.e., the extent of the magnetic interaction (
3.3. Ferroelectric properties
It is known that when an SmC* phase is confined to a thin sandwich cell with a gap smaller than the pitch of the helical superstructure, an unwinding of the helix occurs and a bistable, ferroelectric device is formed (Figure 16) (Goodby et al., 1991; Lagerwall, 1999; Dierking, 2003). Consequently,
The SmC* phase of (2
Furthermore, second-harmonic generation (SHG) was clearly observed by Kogo and Takezoe et al. under a phase-matching condition in the SmC* phase of (2
4. NR Ionic Liquids (ILs)
The synthesis and electric, electrochemical and magnetic properties of IL compounds (±)-14 were reported (Figure 4), coupled with the first use of this type of magnetic IL as an EPR spin probe in typical achiral diamagnetic ILs (Uchida et al, 2009a). Although the chloride (±)-14a (X = Cl) was hygroscopic and miscible with water, anhydrous and fairly hydrophobic ILs were obtained for other salts of (±)-14 (X = BF4, NTf2, PF6) which showed a glass transition between –37 and –22 C and decomposed between 162 and 170 C in air.
The temperature dependence of
5. Conclusions and prospects
The unique magnetic and electric properties of organic NR LCs and ILs were briefly surveyed. Noteworthy is the first observation of positive magneto-LC effects (
Meanwhile, the advent of IL NR EPR spin probes would make possible the in-depth understanding of the local structure or the molecular shape anisotropy of diamagnetic IL solvents, which cannot be available by using conventional spin probes such as TEMPO derivatives.
The research on metal-free magnetic soft materials is still in its infancy. The development of novel metal-free magnetic soft materials such as LCs, ILs, emulsions, and gels based on the NR chemistry is strongly expected.
Acknowledgement
We Acknowledge Professor Takeji Takui, Professor Hiroyuki Nohira, Dr. Yoshio Aoki, Professor Hideo Takezoe, Dr. Yoshio Shimbo, Ms. Reiri Kogo, Professor Jun Yamauchi, Dr. Yohei Noda, Dr. Naohiko Ikuma and Dr. Satoshi Shimono for their collaboration.
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