Abstract Unlike thermotropic liquid-crystalline C 3-symmetric molecules with flexible chains, the herein-designed fully rigid three-armed molecules (C 3-symmetric and unsymmetric) create a fancy architecture for the formation of lyotropic liquid crystals in water. First, hollow columns with triple-stranded helices, analogous to helical rosette nanotubes, are spontaneously constructed by self-organization of the rigid three-armed molecules. Then, ...
