| Abstract: | The syntheses of three methacrylate monomers with cinnamate ester side-chains and of a further monomer with a corresponding cinnamide side-chain are described. Two of the monomers, with isomeric structures, were thermotropic liquid crystals. Although the clearing points were very similar the crystal melting points differed by 8°C. One compound also exhibited a monotropic smectic phase, behavior not shown by its isomer. The other two monomers were not liquid crystalline. The monomers were polymerized by free radical polymerization, both as homopolymers and as copolymers with methyl methacrylate. In the case of one of the mesogenic ester monomers, copolymers with a cyanophenyl benzoate monomer were also prepared. Three of the four monomers formed thermotropic liquid crystalline homopolymers and the copolymers with the benzoate monomer were also liquid crystalline. The monomers were considered as photoactive components of polymeric liquid crystals. As a preliminary investigation of their photochemistry, copolymers with methyl methacrylate were prepared and irradiated in solution with a broad-band source. Under these conditions two of the materials show a facile photo-Fries rearrangement of the aryl cinnamate ester group. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
