Chapter 15: Stabilization of Discotic Liquid Crystals

It is surprising that only very little work has been done to polymer modify discotic liquid crystals. While polymer dispersed discotic liquid crystals have been reported, polymer-stabilized systems appear not to have been investigated at all. This may be due to the lack of a need for mechanical stabilization in opto-electronic devices, where other techniques can be employed, such as charge transfer complexation and complementary polytropic interactions. The currently used different methods of stabilization will be reviewed and compared, while polymer stabilization may open new prospects in the future.