Dresden 2006 – scientific programme
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CPP: Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 27: POSTER Polymer Physics and Materials
CPP 27.11: Poster
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 17:00–19:00, P2
Polarized Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy on Thin Chiral Liquid Crystal Elastomer Films — •Michael Tammer1, Patrick Kölsch1, Bin Chen2, Heino Finkelmann2, and Friedrich Kremer1 — 1Universität Leipzig, Institut für Experimentelle Physik I, Linnéstr. 5, 04103 Leipzig — 2Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Makromolekulare Chemie, Stefan Meier Str. 31, 79104 Freiburg
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCE) are consisting of crosslinked polymers with mesogenic units connected to the polymer network. Embedding an anisotropic liquid crystals in an elastic polymer network results in a variety of remarkable features. Their macroscopic form changes strongly with temperature, they are birefringent due to the alignment of the mesogens or they change volume in electric fields, just to name a few of the sophisticated features of this relatively new class of material. The potential applications range from soft contact lenses, artificial muscles, multicolor laser devices to electro-mechanical devices. Polarized Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) is applied to investigate the molecular response of thin liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) films with a cholesteric mesogen structure to an external mechanical stress. The analysis of the absorbance bands for molecular vibrations of the main chain, the spacer groups and bands of the mesogens yields the mean orientations and the order parameters of these molecular units. The influence of the applied strain on the orientation and order is determined.