ABSTRACT
Polymers are large molecules or macromolecules with a repeating pattern to their structures. Polymers are modular in that they comprise one or more continually repeating structural monomer units to give a ‘string’ or a ‘network’. The important concepts of liquid crystal polymers are fairly simple and easily grasped when the basic principles of polymers are combined with some basic knowledge of liquid crystals. Side chain liquid crystal polymers consist of mesogenic structural moieties appended from a polymer backbone. Liquid crystal polymers exhibit the same liquid crystalline phases and mesophases exhibited by low molar mass mesogens. Main chain liquid crystal polymers have repeating mesogenic units that form a long chain. Side chain liquid crystal polymers were realised in 1978 when Ringsdorf and coworkers inserted a flexible spacer unit between the rigid mesogenic unit and the polymer backbone. Clearly the mesogenic unit will have a great influence on the liquid crystal phases generated and the transition temperatures.
