Back Cover, Volume 131, Issue 6

Thermally conductive polymer composites have attracted attention as heat dissipative materials for numerous electronic devices. Shusuke Yoshihara et al. describe the high thermal conductivity (TC) of smectic liquid crystalline polyester/magnesium oxide (MgO) composites and reveal that the polyester can function as an isotropic matrix with 1.0 W m −1 K −1 , which is 5 times as high as those of common polymers. Such an unusually high TC for a polymer matrix is attributed to some polymer lamellae that lie parallel to the particle surface and are stacked toward neighboring particles, thus creating heat paths between the particles. The cover image shows a polarized optical micrograph of the crystal domains around the MgO particles. DOI: 10.1002/app.39896