The effect of surface treatment on the alignment and phase transition of a polypeptide liquid crystal

Poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG), was utilized as a surface coating agent in order to obtain parallel molecular orientation in thin layers of PBLG liquid-crystalline solutions confined between coated surfaces. It was found that in a thickness range much larger than the cholesteric pitch value, the texture was predominantly planar cholesteric. At film thickness comparable or smaller than the pitch, isotropic spherulites developed from a homeotropic nematic phase. Because of the coupling between the solution concentration and nematic director, as well as large differences in the elastic moduli of PBLG liquid-crystalline solutions, the long-range intermolecular interaction was unfavorable. Competition between parallel orientation induced by the surface coating of PBLG and inherent perpendicular orientation induced by PBLG molecules in the bulk would favor a short-range helix-coil transition mechanism, which results into a reentrant isotropic phase.