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Liquid Crystalline Elastomers
Author(s) -
Zentel Rudolf
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.19891011041
Subject(s) - elastomer , liquid crystalline , materials science , rubber elasticity , supramolecular chemistry , elasticity (physics) , liquid crystal , polymer , polymer science , phase (matter) , nanotechnology , composite material , crystallography , chemistry , organic chemistry , crystal structure , 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 phase (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 elastromers with chiral phases are used, leads, for example, to elastomers with chiral smectic C* phases which are likely to show piezo‐electric behavior.