https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2005-10077-7
Rapid Note
Main-chain smectic liquid-crystalline polymers as randomly disordered systems
1
FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Kruislaan 407, 1098 SJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2
Institute of Crystallography, Academy of Sciences of Russia, Leninsky prospect 59, 117333, Moscow, Russia
3
Institut für Makromolekulare Chemie, Universtät Freiburg, D-79104, Freiburg, Germany
* e-mail: dejeu@amolf.nl
Received:
31
October
2005
Accepted:
27
February
2006
Published online:
3
April
2006
We report a high-resolution X-ray lineshape study of main-chain smectic polymers. The results indicate that the layer ordering differs fundamentally from the algebraic decay typical for other smectic liquid-crystalline systems. The lineshapes are best described by broad squared Lorentzians indicating some form of short-range correlations. However, several higher harmonics are observed, which excludes simple liquid-like short-range order. This behaviour is tentatively attributed to a random field of defects associated with entangled hairpins in the main-chain polymer structure.
PACS: 61.30.-v Liquid crystals – / 64.60.Cn Order-disorder transformations; statistical mechanics of model systems – / 61.10.Eq X-ray scattering (including small-angle scattering) –
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag, 2006
