Side Chain Polymer Liquid Crystals in High Magnetic Fields

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Abstract
We report an optical study of Side Chain Polymer Liquid Crystals (SCPLCs) in magnetic fields up to 20T. A novel sensitive set-up, which allows simultaneous birefringence and static light scattering measurements, was used to study polynorborene and polyacrylate based SCPLCs. We find that only magnetic fields bigger than a threshold value B min are able to induce orientation effects and this only at the crossing of the Isotropic-Nematic (IN) transition when cooling from the melt. The existence of a minimum field B min proves to be general, while its value is strongly dependent on the polymeric backbone elasticity, polymerization degree and spacer length. We have produced bulk and thin film aligned samples, stable at room temperature, characterized by an optical uniaxial anisotropy, with a director order parameter S D ∼0.9999.

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