Abstract
Over the last decade, liquid-crystalline elastomers have been paid increasing attention as a novel class of liquid crystalline materials, because they give rise to new macroscopic features by combining the mechanical properties of polymer networks with the anisotropic structure of liquid crystalline phases. While mesogenic group can be incorporated into a polymer network not only as side chains but also part of the main chain, most of liquid crystalline elastomers described so far belong to the former case. Although the polymeric and mesogenic effects are to be effectively coupled in the main-chain liquid-crystalline elastomers, few studies have been done. In this study, we have investigated the phase transition behavior and the collective dynamics of a main-chain liquid-crystalline elastomer which is constructed from p, p'-dimethyl bibenzoate and mixtures of alkyl-diols.
