MOLECULAR FIELD THEORY FOR NEMATIC LIQUID CRYSTAL POLYMER COMPRISING FLEXIBLE SPACER

Basea on the new model and concept of mtramolecular orientational order parameter, a molecular field theory was built up for main chain liquid crystalline polymer (MC-LCPs) with flexible spacers. The theory takes account of orientational correlation among all mesogens in a polymer chain and the relationship between the intramolecular orientation and spatial orientation of the mesogens. The free energy, temperature and entropy of the nematic-isotropic transition were determined with the theory and compared with experiments in current work. It was found that many unique transition properties of the MC-LCPs comprising flexible spacer are correctly predicted by the theory and the agreement of the theory with the experiments is impressive.