Preparation and Characterization of Side-Chain Liquid-Crystalline Polyoxetanes Anchoring a Pendant Spacer-Separated Mesogen at the Tertiary-Like C-3 Carbon of the Oxetane Unit

Abstract

Abstract Polyoxetanes anchoring a pendant spacer-separated mesogen at the tertiary-like C-3 carbon of the oxetane unit were prepared by cationic ring-opening polymerization of the corresponding oxetane derivatives. The resulting polymers were liquid-crystalline substances showing textures assignable to the nematic or smectic mesophase over a wide temperature range from about 260 °C to room temperature. These mesogens also behaved in the manner similar to that of the mesogens in the analogous polyoxetanes attached by a methyl side chain at the quaternary C-3 carbon, although the less bulky polymer backbone in the present work indicated a somewhat higher isotropic phase-transition temperature than that of the methyl-substituted analogs. In both types of the polyoxetanes, their mesophase patterns were influenced by the core structure and alkoxy tail length in the pendant mesogen, but not by the bulkiness of the second side chains, H and CH3, attached at the C-3 carbon of the polyoxetane unit.