Polar Liquid Crystal Elastomers Cross Linked Far from Thermodynamic Phase Transitions: Dislocation Loops in Smectic Clusters
Figure 1
Top: sketch of one layer of polar mesogens and its crosslinker in a side-chain liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) with layer spacing larger than one pendant cyano mesogen. Below are the chemical structures of the compounds used to synthesize LSCE films 300 μm thick and several cm2 area, with 7 mol% crosslinker and 50, 70, and 100 mol of the polar cyano mesogens, respectively, CN50, CN70, and CN100. Fully extended, molecular lengths of the two mesogens are . Including the siloxane as a chain extender adds another ~2 to each monomer. The layer spacings are shown in Figure 2.
