New method for preparing a liquid crystal polymer that exhibits linearly polarized white fluorescence

With the aim of developing a single-chain white-light-emitting polymer, liquid crystal (LC) polymers with a shish-kebab-type moiety on their cross-conjugated (p-phenylene)s-poly(p-phenylenevinylene)s main chain were synthesized by Gilch polymerization. They were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and polarizing optical microscopy (POM). 1H-NMR indicated that the polymers had a shish-kebab structure, which strongly suppressed the formation of structural defects in the polymers. DSC revealed that the polymers had thermotropic LC properties, indicating that the LC polymers were enantiotropic. XRD showed that the polymers had a mesophase, which implies that they were in a smectic LC phase. A polymer with "kebabs" of 2,5-bis(4'-alkoxyphenyl)benzene was combined with an aligned polyimide film with orientated microgrooves. The polymer main chain was aligned due to the orientation of the "kebabs" of the uniform cross-conjugated structure. It lay between the kebabs and the "shish" of the polymer main chains. The aligned polymer main chain emitted yellow light while and the oriented LC side chains emitted blue light emission. These two emissions resulted in linearly polarized white fluorescence.

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