Synthesis and Processing of Liquid Crystal/Coil Diblock Copolymers

本研究旨在制备新型主链和侧链液晶聚合物，并将其与一个常规的线圈段结合到两嵌段共聚物中。合成方法将利用阴离子聚合技术，以生产定义明确的模型材料。液晶嵌段/线圈嵌段共聚物及其与液晶均聚物、线圈均聚物以及小分子生色团和介晶的共混物将用显微镜和散射技术在几个长度尺度上进行表征。特别是，将根据主链或侧链液晶块对材料间分割面性质的影响来研究它们在长距离有序微区阵列中的自组装。在微相分离转变过程中，由于外加电场(如电场、磁场和流体动力场)的存在，将进行偏置自组装，以产生单晶织构样品，作为非线性光学材料进行评估。这是由康奈尔大学的克里斯托弗·K·奥贝尔和麻省理工学院的埃德温·L·托马斯联合开展的材料合成和加工活动。

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.