Synthesis and Processing of Liquid Crystal/Coil Diblock Copolymers

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This research seeks to prepare novel main-chain and side-chain liquid crystalline polymers and to incorporate these into diblock copolymers with one conventional coil block. The synthetic approach will utilize anionic polymerization techniques so as to produce well-defined model materials. Liquid crystal block/coil block copolymers and their blends with liquid crystal homopolymer and coil homopolymer as well as with small molecule chromophores and mesogens will be characterized at several length scales using microscopy and scattering techniques. In particular, their self- assembly into long-range ordered arrays of microdomains will be examined in light of the influence of a main-chain or side-chain liquid crystal block on the nature of the intermaterial dividing surface. Biased self-assembly due to the presence of an applied field during the microphase separation transition (e.g. electric, magnetic, and hydrodynamic flow fields) will be undertaken so as to produce single-crystal-texture samples for assessment as nonlinear optical materials. This is a Materials Synthesis and Processing activity jointly carried out by Christopher K. Ober of Cornell University and Edwin L. Thomas of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.