Novel mechanical properties in lamellar phases of liquid-crystalline diblock copolymers

Structural properties of flexible nematic diblock copolymers in the lamellar phase are investigated using a mean-field model. We address two complementary questions on the mechanics of the system: 1) How does the nematic order affect the elasticity of the one-dimensional solid? 2) What effect does the block copolymer microstructure has on the orientation of the nematic director? In the limit when the microstructure does not influence the nematic director orientation we predict a soft lamellar compression mode. When the microstructure does influence the nematic director orientation, small compressions lead to conventional elasticity, until a critical strain is reached, where there is then a transition to a softer response. On the other hand, we show that an identifiable lamellar symmetry provides a direction along which the nematic director prefers to align. Our model provides avenues to explore nonlinear properties of flexible diblock copolymers in which the monomers on both sides have mesogenic side groups.