Kenneth J. Toyne

TL;DR: The tetrakis(triphenylphosphine) palladium (0)-catalysed coupling of arylboronic acids with aryal halides is used to prepare several 4,4″-dialkyl- and 4, 4″-alkoxyalkyl-1,1′:4′,1″-terphenyls with 2,3- or 2′,3′-difluoro substituents and their related biphenyl systems as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: A range of nematogenic materials which incorporate a 2,6-disubstituted naphthyl moiety and a terminal cyano-substituent have been synthesized by using palladium-catalysed cross-coupling procedures involving arylboronic acids and alkynylzinc reagents with aryls iodides, bromides and trifluoromethanesulphonates (triflates).

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report the synthesis of a range of novel materials by the strategic use of palladium-catalysed cross-coupling methods, in addition to the traditional use of bromide and iodide leaving groups, invaluable use of the triflate leaving group and the importance of selective crosscoupled methods using both arylboronic acids and alkynylzinc chloride derivatives.

TL;DR: In this paper, the synthesis of structurally complex liquid crystals by traditional linear methods is often difficult, if not impossible, and the synthesis using small, more easily managed units of the correct substitution patterns in high-yielding coupling reactions is a much more viable approach; the possible use of the sub-units in synthesis of many different final compounds leads to systematic and economic syntheses.

TL;DR: In this paper, the complexity of the molecular architectures of liquid crystals based on rod-like mesogens was investigated, and it was shown that at a certain level of molecular complexity the local mesogenic interactions become irrelevant and it is gross molecular shape that determines mesophase stability.