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Liquid Crystalline Elastomers
Author(s) -
Zentel Rudolf
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.19890011003
Subject(s) - elastomer , materials science , liquid crystalline , rubber elasticity , liquid crystal , elasticity (physics) , supramolecular chemistry , polymer , polymer science , natural rubber , composite material , nanotechnology , crystallography , crystal structure , chemistry , optoelectronics
Today, material science is directed towards the development of multifunctional and oriented structures. One example of such supramolecular systems are liquid crystalline (LC) elastomers which combine the properties of LC phases (the combination of order and mobility) with rubber elasticity, one of the most typical polymer properties. Their most outstanding characteristic is their mechanical orientability; strains as small as 20% are enough to obtain a perfectly oriented LC monodomain. This orientability, if LC elastomers with chiral phases are used, leads, for example, to elastomers with chiral smectic C* phases which are likely to show piezo‐electric behavior.