In the first part of this thesis, ionization of discotic nematogens was explored. Low temperature pyridine-containing discotic nematogens were ionized in hope to generate low temperature discotic ionic liquid crystals. In the second part, mesoginic properties of a series of cyanobiphenyl tetramers attached to a benzene unit with flexible diether linkages were reported. From optical textures and X-ray diffraction studies, the nature of the nematic phase exhibited by these tetramers was determined to be calamitic, which implies the four cyanobiphenyl units are not in the extended conformation to be disc-like or board-like geometry.