Cover Picture: Small 6/2008

The cover picture shows a 10 ×10 µm2 magnification of a spiderweb-shaped network of liquid-crystalline discotic phthalocyanines, as seen by atomic force microscopy. This peculiar pattern is obtained by creating a nanotemplate consisting of crisscrossed nanogrooves. When phthalocyanines are confined in such nanogrooves, sidewall interfacial tension makes the alignment of the discotic columns follow the tangential direction down to the micrometer scale. At small curvature radii, the bending energy overcomes the alignment energy and the columns misalign. This leads to a method allowing an estimation of their bending modulus. For more information, please read the Communication “Nanocontrolled Bending of Discotic Columns by Spiral Networks” by A. M. Jonas et al. beginning on page 728.