The electro-optic properties of fluorinated polydialkoxyphosphazenes with different lengths of side substituents

Polydialkoxyphosphazenes with partially fluorinated side substituents of different lengths in dioxane and ethyl acetate are studied via the methods of the equilibrium electro-optic Kerr effect, isothermal translational diffusion, and viscosimetry. It is experimentally found that the magnitude and sign of the Kerr constant depend on the length of the side substituents. The observed dependence is explained by the changes in the optical polarizability tensor and the angle between the direction of the permanent dipole moment and the primary axis of optical polarizability of the monomer unit of these macromolecules with an increase in the number of carbon atoms in the chains of alkoxy substituents attached to phosphorus. It is shown that fluorinated polydialkoxyphosphazenes are comblike polymers with high equilibrium skeletal rigidity and non-coincident principal directions of the optical polarizability and dielectric polarizability of the monomer unit.