ABSTRACT
Academic interest in the development of liquid crystalline (LC) polymers has focused largely on synthesizing and characterizing the polymer systems and understanding their structure-property relationships. Ferroelectric LC polymers exhibit polarization bistability and electro-optic response in the range of microseconds, therefore being functional materials of great potential for optical switches, light valves, display and storage devices. Structurally suitable azo initiators can be used as transformation agents, since they are able to combine other polymerization routes with radical polymerizations. The molecules in an LC polymer possess an orientational order in the LC phases. These phases exist as intermediary but thermodynamically stable phases between the crystalline and the isotropic state and mainly arise by the form and dipolar anisotropy of the molecular components. The applicability of one method was extended to the preparation of Interpenetrating Networks having LC blocks using poly(tetrahydrofuran) bifunctional macromonomer and LC monomer.
