Abstract
We observe the spontaneous shape change of a uniaxially deformed liquid-crystalline elastomer composed of smectic main-chain liquid-crystalline polyesters in a cyclic heating–cooling process. Although the elastomer contracts by about 115% on heating up to the isotropic phase, the sample length recovers by 55% on cooling to room temperature in the first heating–cooling process, and the elastomer exhibits an almost complete reversible deformation in the second heating–cooling process. By a comparison of the results of sample observation with those of X-ray analysis, we recognise that the strain λ was linearly coupled with the orientational order parameter S. In addition, the results of the X-ray analysis imply that a cybotactic nematic state, in which smectic clusters lie scattered in a nematic-like matrix, emerges after exposure to the isotropic phase.
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