Liquid crystals Melting

Liquid crystalline solutions as such have not yet found any commercial uses, but highly orientated liquid crystal polymer films are used to store information. The liquid crystal melt is held between two conductive glass plates and the side chains are oriented by an electric field to produce a transparent film. The electric field is turned off and the information inscribed on to the film using a laser. The laser has the effect of heating selected areas of the film above the nematic-isotropic transition temperature. These areas thus become isotropic and scatter light when the film is viewed. Such images remain stable below the glass transition temperature of the polymer. 

Liquid-crystal melt, 20 45 Liquid crystal phase formation, trends in, 15 105... 

For polymers which, on heating, yield Mesophases (liquid crystal melts), the so-called mesogenic polymers or liquid crystal polymers (LCPs), the situation of phase transitions is much more complex. In this case the simple Volume-Temperature diagram, given in Fig. 4.2 is not valid anymore and has to be substituted by a more complicated one, which is shown in Fig. 6.12. 

The liquid crystal melt, which comes into being at the glass-rubber transition or at the crystal-melt transition, may have several phase states (Mesophases) one or more smectic melt phases, a nematic phase and sometimes a chiral or cholesteric phase the final phase will be the isotropic liquid phase, if no previous decomposition takes place. All mesophase transitions are thermodynamically real first order effects, in contradistinction to the glass-rubber transition. A schematic representation of some characteristic liquid crystal phase structures is shown in Fig. 6.13, where also so-called columnar phases formed from disclike molecules is given. 

Wissbrun earlier observed a very long relaxation time and high elasticity for anisotropic melts of aromatic polyesters, as well as several other types of flow anomalies. Unfortunately, in most of these earlier studies, the rheological behavior of liquid crystal melts of polymers could not be directly compared with that of the isotropic phase of the same polymers because of their high clearing temperatures. 

Gel to liquid-crystal melting transition for DPPC liposomes as a function of cholesterol content. Results are shown for aqueous liposomes (stars), liposomes freeze-dried without trehalose (triangles), and liposomes freeze-dried in the presence of trehalose (circles). 

The polymer was produced by heating of dichloranhydride of tere-phthaloyl-bis( -oxybenzoic) acid, l,l,3,3-tetramethylene-l,3-bis-(3-hydroxypropyl)-bis-siloxane and triethylamine in ratio 1 1 2, respectively in environment of chloroform in argon atmosphere. The studied were the fibers obtained by mechanical extrusion from liquid-crystal melt when heating initial sample. The polymer s characteristic stmcture was of smectic type with folding location of molecules within layers. 

A thermotropic liquid crystal is capable of polymorphism, the situation in which a material exhibits more than one liquid-crystalline modification between the solid and liquid phases. For instance, when a calamitic liquid crystal melts it can do so via transitions between a number of smectic phases and the nematic phase. For the purposes of phase... 

There are several different phases in thermotropic liquid crystals. The structural nature of mesophases is influenced by the molecular shape and therefore depends on whether the liquid crystal is formed by rod-like or disc-like molecules. Thermotropics of rod-like molecules may be divided into two main categories nematic and smectic phases. There exist many types of smectic phases, labeled as 5, 5b, S /. When an ordered solid of a liquid crystal melts (see Fig. 1.1), it may melt into a nematic phase or a smectic A phase. Upon further heating, it eventually turns into an isotropic liquid. First, classical thermotropic liquid crystals are described, and then a group of more exotic liquid crystals like discotic thermotropics, lyotropics, and liquid crystalline polymers. 

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