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Published on: May 29, 2018
Hemiphasmidic Side-Chain Liquid Crystalline Polymer: From Smectic C Phase to Columnar Phase with a Bundle of Chains
Jun-Feng Zheng1, Xin Liu1, Xiao-Fang Chen1
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering and Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Abstract:
We synthesized a new hemiphasmidic side-chain liquid crystalline polymer (P-n, n is the number of carbons in alky tail of the side chain, n = 4-12) using free radical polymerization. The side chain of P-n has a biphenyl in the middle, linked to the polystyrene backbone and to the terminal phenyl group with three alkyl tails via only methyleneoxy units. Upon increasing n, the mesophase of P-n changes from bilayer smectic C to hexagonal columnar (Φh) phase with the a-dimension of ∼6 nm. Both of the mesophases are long-range ordered, which can be well aligned by simple shearing. The oriented Φh shows a quite low rotational disorder around the shear direction. Most likely, the Φh phase takes a bundle of chains (e.g., ∼five chains) rather than a single chain as its building block. This "multi-chain model" of the Φh phase may represent a new type of self-assembly in side-chain polymers.
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