Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme
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CPP: Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 14: SYMPOSIUM: Understanding and Controlling Complex Structures: From Synthetic Polymers to Biomaterials II
CPP 14.1: Invited Talk
Tuesday, March 9, 2004, 14:00–14:30, H 37
Competition of order in liquid crystalline/isotropic block copolymers — •Bernd Stühn1, Wolfram Gronski2, Rosina Staneva1, Sergei Zhukov1, and Steffen Geppert2 — 1Technische Universität Darmstadt, Physics of Condensed Matter, D-64289 Darmstadt — 2Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, D-79104 Freiburg
The formation of structure in block copolymers consisting of an isotropic and a liquid crystalline block is governed by two factors. One is the domain ordering caused by the strong repulsive interaction between both blocks. As a second factor the orientational order of the mesogens in the liquid crystalline block is to be considered.
We have investigated a series of di- and triblock copolymers with the liquid crystalline block either confined within spherical, cylindrical or lamellar domains or forming the continuous matrix. Small and wide angle X-ray scattering has been applied to study structure on a wide range of length scales. The dependence of domain order on the orientational order is studied by variation of temperature and crossing the transition temperature of the liquid crystalline phase. The nematic order of the LC clearly favours the cylindrical over the spherical domain form thus causing a variation of structure with temperature at the LC phase transition. For one example we find a order-to-order transition in the domain structure triggered by the nematic-isotropic phase transition of the liquid crystalline matrix.