Tailoring the liquid crystalline property via controlling the generation of dendronized polymers containing azobenzene mesogen |
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Authors: | Chang‐An Yang Guo Wang Helou Xie Qing Wang Hailiang Zhang Erqiang Chen Qifeng Zhou |
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Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Polymeric Materials and Application Technology of Hunan Province, Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Materials of Colleges and Universities of Hunan Province, College of Chemistry, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, Hunan Province, People's Republic of China;2. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China |
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Abstract: | The first‐ and second‐generation dendronized polymers containing azobenzene mesogen were designed and successfully synthesized via free radical polymerization. The chemical structures of the monomers were confirmed by elemental analysis, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR. The molecular characterizations of the polymers were performed with 1H NMR and gel permeation chromatography. The phase structures and transition behaviors were studied using differential scanning calorimetry, polarized light microscopy, and small‐angle X‐ray scatter experiments. The experiment results revealed that the first‐generation dendronized polymer exhibited liquid crystalline behavior of the conventional side‐chain liquid crystalline polymer with azobenzene mesogen, that is, the polymer exhibited smectic phase structure at lower temperature and nematic phase structure at higher temperature. However, the second‐generation dendronized polymers exhibited more versatile intriguing liquid crystalline structures, namely smectic phase structure at lower temperature and columnar nematic phase structure at higher temperature, and moreover, the phase structure still remained before the decomposition temperature. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 1149–1159, 2010 |
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Keywords: | azobenzene mesogen dendronized polymer liquid‐crystalline polymers (LCP) phase behavior radical polymerization |
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