Order and strain in main-chain smectic liquid-crystalline polymers and elastomers

The layer correlations in main-chain smectic liquid-crystal polymer and elastomer systems have been studied using high-resolution X-ray scattering. In contrast to side-chain smectic polymers, in main-chain systems the polymer chains are oriented parallel to the layer normal. As a result they couple...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The European physical journal. E, Soft matter and biological physics Soft matter and biological physics, 2007-12, Vol.24 (4), p.399-409
Main Authors: de Jeu, W H, Obraztsov, E P, Ostrovskii, B I, Ren, W, McMullan, P J, Griffin, A C, Sánchez-Ferrer, A, Finkelmann, H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computer Simulation
Elasticity
Elastomers - chemistry
Liquid Crystals - chemistry
Models, Chemical
Models, Molecular
Molecular Conformation
Phase Transition
Stress, Mechanical
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Summary:The layer correlations in main-chain smectic liquid-crystal polymer and elastomer systems have been studied using high-resolution X-ray scattering. In contrast to side-chain smectic polymers, in main-chain systems the polymer chains are oriented parallel to the layer normal. As a result they couple directly to the lamellar structure and any polymer defect is translated into layer distortions. For the homopolymers the resulting X-ray lineshapes are well described by Lorentzians. This is interpreted as an average of algebraically decaying order in domains with dimensions of hundreds of nm and a wide dispersion of sizes. The elastomers show much broader peaks than the correponding polymers. This is attributed to strong non-uniform strain within the finite-size domains due to defects of the layer structure.
ISSN:1292-8941
1292-895X
DOI:10.1140/epje/i2007-10254-8