Rod-Like and Banana-Shaped Liquid Crystals by Means of Deuterium NMR : Molecular structure, orientational ordering and molecular dynamics of complex liquid crystalline materials

The field of liquid crystals (LCs) is for me one of the most fascinating aspects of the Science of Materials, on the other hand, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) represents a very powerful spectroscopy for the large amount of possibilities in performing and projecting new experiments, with the purpose of enlightening both the molecular structure, orientational ordering and dynamics of single molecules. My Ph.D. research mainly focused on investigating the dynamics of thermotropic LCs and the structural and dynamic properties of a new class of LCs called banana-shaped LCs mainly by means of Deuterium (2H) NMR. This work has been awarded by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists - IUPAC (IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists - 2006) and by the Italian Society of Chemistry - Division of Physical Chemistry - SCI (Premio Semerano 2005). An invited critical review on this subject has been published in: Valentina Domenici, Pure and Applied Chemistry, 79 (2007) 21-37. Two papers coming from this research work have been awarded ("Otto Lehmann" Prize 2006 and Premio "Primo Levi" 2005).