分子量の異なる棒状高分子の二成分混合系において発現するスメクチック-スメクチック相分離

抄録

Summary: The smectic liquid crystal (LC) arrangements of binary mixtures of rod-like polymers, i.e., poly[n-decyl-(S)-2-methylbutylsilane], with different molecular weights and narrow molecular weight distributions, were investigated by synchrotron radiation small-angle X-ray scattering (SR-SAXS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyses. According to the theoretical predictions based on the computer simulations, binary mixtures of long and short rod-like particles show the phase separation when the length ratio of two components is greater than 5. In this study, we show that this theoretical prediction is almost quantitatively reproduced: two identical polymers, whose only difference is molecular weight, segregates into each component merely by an entropic driving force.