Scaling Laws in Side-Chain Liquid Crystalline Polymers: Experimental Evidence of Main-Chain Layer Hopping in the Smectic Phase

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Abstract
The average dimensions and the anisotropy of the main chain of a side-chain liquid crystalline polymer are determined in the different mesophases on a series of five different molecular weights. From the comparison of the main-chain dimensions, one deduces that the main chains adopt nearly a self-avoided walk in the isotropic phase. In the smectic phase, the walk adopted between mesogen layers tends to a Gaussian walk, whereas a rodlike behavior is found in the direction parallel to the mesogens.