Recent development of discotic liquid crystalline materials and their carrier transport properties

Discotic liquid crystal molecules readily form columnar phase and therefore possess excellent one-dimensional carrier transporting properties, which are potential materials to be used in optoelectronic devices. In this paper, a number of discotic liquid crystalline materials include triphenylene, phthalocyanine and hexabenzocoronene derivatives will be reviewed. The emphasis will be on their preparation and properties as well as some recent development and application of these materials in optoelectronic devices such as molecular wires, organic photovoltaics.