The LD mixture presents a mesophase with columns of nearly the same characteristics. There are four residues per turn (120") but each of them has a different conformation inducing a fourfold superstructure in the residue sequence.
The fact that these three materials have different structures shows the profound influence of chirality changes on the superstructure formed.
The present results indicate that it is possible to engineer molecular components that may form liquid crystalline polym e r ~ [ ~~] of a supramolecular nature (or mesomorphic polymolecular associations) by the self-assembly of complementary subunits, thus expressing the recognition process occurring on the molecular level via the formation of a macroscopic mesophase, whose properties may in addition depend on the chirality of the components. They extend supramolecular chemistry ["l to the formation of polymeric supermolecules.[21 The materials obtained also represent mesophases resulting from a base pairing process of a biological type.[261 Finally, the formation of these supramolecular mesophases by recognition induced self-assembly involves a molecular information dependent process that leads to the generation of "intelligent" (or "informed") supramolecular materials.