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Updated: Oct 21, 2025

Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy
Published on: August 13, 2019
Study of the molecular orientation of steroidal side chains at polyimide surfaces using sum frequency generation
Trinh Thi Nguyen1, Hien Thi Thu Khuat1, Shinya Asakura1
1School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan.
Abstract:
The molecular orientation of steroidal side chains at rubbed polyimide (PI) surfaces is studied by sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. The main objective is to find a correlation between the molecular structure of the PI film and the liquid crystal alignment on the polymer. Analysis of the SFG spectra shows that rubbing of the polymer film appears to cause conformational changes in the methyl group of the polymer side chain near the steroidal structure. However, rubbing does not significantly influence the orientation of the isopropyl group at the end of the polymer side chain. This shows that the liquid crystal alignment is not correlated with the orientation of the isopropyl group.
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