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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Polymers with Side-chain Mesogenic Units

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Liquid crystalline (LC) polymers are usually prepared by combining formanisotropic structural units (so-called mesogenic groups) and polymer chains (Figure 1). The mesogenic groups used for this purpose are rigid rod-like or disc-like units, which are known to favour LC phases in the case of low molar mass substances. There are two main ways of combining the mesogenic groups and polymer chains. The mesogenic groups can either be incorporated actually into the polymer chains (LC main-chain polymers, see Volume 5, Chapter 38) or they can be attached to flexible polymer chains as side groups (LC side-chain polymers).