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Uniform Alignment of Chiral Smectic C Elastomers Induced by Mechanical Shear Field
Author(s) -
Hiraoka Kazuyuki,
Finkelmann Heino
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/1521-3927(20010301)22:6<456::aid-marc456>3.0.co;2-#
Subject(s) - elastomer , materials science , shear (geology) , composite material , field (mathematics) , polymer science , polymer chemistry , mathematics , pure mathematics
Up to now, liquid crystalline elastomers have been strenuously studied to obtain high orientation induced by mechanical fields. It is known that a uniaxial mechanical field is sufficient to obtain macroscopically uniform alignment for nematic and smectic A liquid crystalline elastomers having uniaxial symmetry. Here the orientation mechanism of biaxial smectic C* elastomers in mechanical shear fields has been investigated. A significant influence of a shear field on the orientation of the smectic C* elastomer is confirmed. In addition, we succeeded in obtaining a monodomain sample of the smectic C* elastomer by this process.