Dipolar interactions intermolecular ordering

The liquid crystalline (mesomorphic) state is produced by a combination of dispersive and attractive forces [5]. In this state of matter, intermolecular interactions are sufficiently weakened to force a substance into a liquid state but attractive dipolar interaction hold the molten molecules into a low dimensional lattice which lacks long range positional order. The weakening of the intermolecular interactions can be accomplished by heating the material which creates molecular motions or by the addition of a liquid component which partially solvates the material. Liquid crystalline phases formed by heating and solvation are termed thermotropics and lyotropics respectively and the remainder of our discussion will focus on thermotropic materials. 

Zwitterionic L-alanine ( HjN—CfCHj)—CO2—) is a dipolar molecule that forms large well-ordered crystals in which the molecules form hydrogen-bonded columns. The strong interactions lead to the presence of well-defined intra- and intermolecular vibrations that can usefully be described using hannonic theory. 

Proton spin-temperature equilibration between the hard- and soft-segment-rich domains of the polyurethane elastomer on the order of 10-100 ms might be considered fast relative to a macroscopically phase-separated blend [26] or copolymer, but slow relative to a strongly interacting mixture [25]. This is reasonable for a microphase-separated material whose solid state morphology has been the subject of considerable theoretical and experimental research. Under fortuitous circumstances, intimate (near-neighbor) contact between dissimilar molecules in a mixture can be studied via direct measurement of proton spin diffusion in a two-dimensional application of the 1H-CRAM PS experiment (Combined Rotation And Multiple Pulse Spectroscopy). Belfiore et al. [17,25,31] have detected intermolecular dipolar communication in a hydrogen-bonded cocrystallized solid solution of poly(ethylene oxide) and resorcinol on the f00-/xs time scale, whereas Ernst and coworkers [26] report the absence of proton spin diffusion on the 100-ms time scale for an immiscible blend of polystyrene and poly(vinyl methyl ether), cast from chloroform. 

In this book the flexoelectric effect is mainly considered from the phenomenological point of view. At the same time it is very interesting and important to reveal the molecular origin of flexoelectricity and, in particular, to consider different types of intermolecular interactions that may be responsible for the dipolar ordering in a deformed liquid crystal, and to study the effects of intermolecular correlations and the molecular structure. This problem can only be solved using a molecular-statistical theory, which eventually allows us to express the flexoelectric coefficients in terms of molecular model parameters using various approximations. 

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