Photo-polymerization of liquid crystalline monomer in oriented liquid crystal phase

A new approach to synthesize liquid crystalline polymer with narrow polydispersity index (PDI) was developed. Photo-polymerization of 4-cyanophenyl-4′-(6-acryloyloxyhexyloxy)benzoate (RM23) in nematic liquid crystals with macroscopic orientation was studied. The effects of the monomer concentration on the molecular weight and PDI of the resulting polymers were studied through gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and polarized optical microscopy. The low PDI of 1.19 and 1.22 was obtained in the reverse and normal modes, respectively. The PDI and molecular weight increased with monomer concentration.