New chiral liquid crystal monomers and cholesteric polyacrylates: synthesis and characterisation |
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| Authors: | Jian-She Hu Qun Li Yi-Nan Liu Ya-Ting Song Wuyuntana Li |
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| Institution: | 1. Center for Molecular Science and Engineering, College of Science, Northeastern University , Shenyang , 110004 , People's Republic of China hujs@mail.neu.edu.cn;3. Center for Molecular Science and Engineering, College of Science, Northeastern University , Shenyang , 110004 , People's Republic of China |
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| Abstract: | The synthesis of new chiral monomers (M1 ?M3 ) based on menthol and the corresponding polyacrylates (P1 ?P3 ) is described. The chemical structures, formula and phase behaviour of the obtained monomers and polymers were characterised with FT-IR, 1H-NMR, elemental analyses, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarising optical microscopy (POM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The effect of the mesogenic core rigidity, spacer length and menthyl steric effect on the phase behaviour of M1 ?M3 and P1 ?P3 is discussed. The expected mesophase of the compounds based on menthol can be obtained by inserting a flexible spacer between the mesogenic core and the terminal groups. For the chiral monomers and polyacrylates, their corresponding melting temperature (T m), glass transition temperature (T g) and clearing temperature (T i) increased with an increase of the mesogenic core rigidity; while the T m, T g and T i decreased with increasing the spacer length. M1 and P1 showed no mesophase, while M2 and M3 all revealed a SmC* and cholesteric phases. P2 and P3 only showed a cholesteric phase. |
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| Keywords: | chiral liquid crystal polyacrylate phase behaviour menthol |
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