Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p><jats:bold>Funky discotics</jats:bold>: Photoconductivity is measured in newly synthesized cyclopalladated metallomesogens exhibiting hexagonal columnar mesophases at room temperature. The tuning of the HOMO/LUMO energy levels by modification of the chain/core linkage (ester <jats:bold>1</jats:bold> vs ether <jats:bold>2</jats:bold>) makes compound <jats:bold>2</jats:bold> photoconductive across the whole UV/Vis/NIR range.<jats:boxed-text content-type="graphic" position="anchor"><jats:graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" mimetype="image/gif" position="anchor" specific-use="enlarged-web-image" xlink:href="graphic/mcontent.gif"><jats:alt-text>magnified image</jats:alt-text></jats:graphic></jats:boxed-text></jats:p><jats:p>The incorporation of a rigid core, formed by a cyclopalladated azobenzene fragment bonded to an ancillary Schiff base ligand, into molecules with 12 or 11 peripheral alkyl chains has been successfully achieved. These new complexes, <jats:bold>1</jats:bold> and <jats:bold>2</jats:bold>, respectively, are columnar liquid crystals between room temperature and about 50 °C. Both cyclometallated and ancillary ligands have been polyalkylated through either aryl ester (electron‐withdrawing group) or aryl ether (electron‐releasing group) linkages, in order to tune the HOMO/LUMO energy levels. The photoconductive properties of <jats:bold>1</jats:bold> and <jats:bold>2</jats:bold> have been studied as a function of their absorption properties before and after annealing, from the UV/Vis to NIR region. Compared with the reference compounds, tris‐alkynyl benzene discotics, these new materials gave similar performances (<jats:italic>σ</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>I</jats:italic>∼8×10<jats:sup>−13</jats:sup> S cm W<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> with <jats:italic>E</jats:italic>=10 V μm<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> at <jats:italic>λ</jats:italic>=370 nm). Moreover, complex <jats:bold>2</jats:bold> shows a normalized photoconductivity <jats:italic>σ</jats:italic>/<jats:italic>I</jats:italic>=8.5×10<jats:sup>−13</jats:sup> S cm W<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> at <jats:italic>λ</jats:italic>=760 nm. Organic photoconductors in such a high wavelength spectral range are not common and are usually assembled by mixing dyes with organic semiconductors.</jats:p>