Tri-s-triazine (s-heptazine), a novel electron-deficient core for soft self-assembled supramolecular structures.

Self-assembled supramolecular structures formed by disc-shaped molecules, commonly known as discotic liquid crystals (DLCs), have attracted tremendous interest during the past decade due to their potential applications in wide-viewing liquid crystal displays, sensors, photovoltaic solar cells, light emitting diodes, thin film transistors, etc. Since the discovery, only about sixty different core molecules have been explored to prepare about 3500 DLCs. We have realised a new heterocyclic aromatic molecular motif, s-heptazine, which functions as a core fragment for the synthesis of discotic liquid crystals on appropriate functionalization.