Synthesis of helical network polymers exhibiting circularly polarized luminescence in chiral smectic liquid crystal field

Abstract

Chiral liquid crystals can be applied to asymmetric polymerization solvents to synthesis helical polymers. Synthesis of helical network polymers (HNPs) through photocrosslinking polymerization in chiral nematic liquid crystals (N*-LCs) has been reported. In this work, HNPs were synthesized in chiral smectic liquid crystals (SC*-LCs) as asymmetric medium. This is the first successful asymmetric polymerization using SC*-LCs. The HNPs showed a striated fan-shaped texture attributed to SC*-LCs and exhibited circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). The present HNPs have highly ordered structures compared to the HNPs synthesized in N*-LCs.