Analysis of Reorientational Processes in Liquid Crystalline Side Chain Polymers Using Dielectric Relaxation, Electro-Optical Relaxation and Switching Studies

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Abstract
Reorientational processes were investigated for liquid crystalline side chain polymers, displaying a nematic phase, by means of dielectric relaxation, electro-optical relaxation and switching studies. The results on the dynamical responses were analyzed in terms of the appropriate theories, i.e., in terms of the Landau de Gennes phenomenological approach (electro-optical relaxation), the continuum approach (switching) and the extended Debye approach (dielectric relaxation). The main results of such an analysis are that the three different models yield dynamical quantities such as the viscosities and the response times, which are consistent with respect to each other. This leads, first of all, to the conclusions that the basic process controlling all three phenomena is the reorientational motion of the mesogenic unit about the short axis and secondly that the rotational process is controlled in the case of side chain polymers by fluctuations rather than by small step rotational diffusion.