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Orientability of the Minor Director of Homeotropically Aligned Smectic‐A Elastomers in External Mechanical Fields
Author(s) -
Brömmel Felicitas,
Kramer Dominic,
Brown Benjamin P.,
Finkelmann Heino,
Hoffmann Anke
Publication year - 2013
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/marc.201200588
Subject(s) - elastomer , materials science , liquid crystal , copolymer , condensed matter physics , composite material , optics , polymer , physics , optoelectronics
We present studies on bulk smectic‐A copolymer networks with end‐on attached homeotropically oriented mesogens that show spontaneous optical biaxiality at room temperature. Orthoscopic and conoscopic investigations under uniaxial extension in the layer planes give first evidence of the orientability of the minor director in mechanical fields yielding biaxial monodomains with 3‐d orientational long‐range order of all three principle axes. This is an important step towards the synthesis of permanently oriented biaxial monodomain elastomers for which highly interesting mechanical and optical properties are expected.