THE ALIGNMENT OF A THERMOTROPIC NEMATIC LCP ON LECITHIN COATED SURFACES AS DETECTED BY NMR

The orientational order of a surface aligned nematic side chain polyme r has been measured by proton NMR. The alignment of the mesogenic unit s is reflected in the angular dependence of the line width. It was pos sible to produce partly oriented polydomain layers in homeotropic geom etry by interaction of the mesogenic units with a lecithin monolayer o n a glass substrate. The degree of orientational order in a layer near by the lecithin surface and the correlation length of the decay of the orientational order parameter into the bulk have been estimated.