S1 Coupling of Liquid Crystals to Silica Nanoparticles Vincent Rachet, Khalid Lahlil, Mathieu Bérard, Thierry Gacoin, Jean-Pierre Boilot* Physique le la Matière Condensée, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, 911128- Palaiseau (France). jean-pierre.boilot@polytechnique.fr SUPPORTING INFORMATION Experimental procedures Materials Hydrosilylation reactions were carried out under a dried N 2 atmosphere. THF was dried by distillation over the blue solution of sodium and benzophenone. Chlorosilane HSiMe 2 Cl and platinum catalyst (Pt/C) were purchased from Aldrich Chemical Co. and used without further purifications. The crystal liquid BL24 was purchased from Merck and the MA-ST suspension of silica nanoparticles from Nissan (30 wt% in methanol and containing 2 wt % of water). Elemental analyses were performed by the Central Laboratory of CNRS (Vernaison, France). NMR spectra were obtained with a 300MHz Bruker spectrometer and were measured using CDCl 3 . The chemical shifts expressed in ppm are reported in δ relative to tetramethylsilane (TMS) as an internal reference for 1 H spectra. Synthesis of L1 molecules L1 molecules were prepared from the following reaction : HO CN KOH/ETOH Br O CN (CH 2 )n (CH 2 )n L1(n=5, 9) L1 (n = 9). Into a stirred solution of potassium hydroxide 0.86 g (154 mmol) in ethanol (25 ml) was added 3 g (15.4 mmol) of 4-cyano4’-hydroxybiphenyl. A yellow precipitate appears which can be dissolved in refluxed ethanol. To this homogenous solution was added drop by drop the 11-bromo-1- hexene and refluxed overnight. The solvent was then evaporated and the residue was extracted with 30ml of dichloromethane. The insoluble salts of potassium bromide formed were filtered and the solvent was evaporated. The obtained solid was purified by flash chromatography eluting with dichloromethane/cyclohexane (50/50) yielding 65% of pure product which can be crystallized from ethanol at -18°C. NMR (δ Η ,CDCl 3 ): 7.6(q, 4H) ,7.5(d, 2H), 7.0(d, 3H), 5.8(m, 1H), 5.0(t, 2H), 4.0(t, 2H), 2.0(q, 2H), 1.8(m, 2H), 1.3(m, 12H). NMR (δ c ,CDCl 3 ): Aliphatic carbon : (26.12; 28.99; 29.22; 29.30; 29.48; 29.53; 29.62; 33.91) CH2-O(68.16); Vinylic