INCOHERENT QUASI-ELASTIC NEUTRON-SCATTERING STUDY OF HIGHLY ORIENTED FIBERS OF COPPER LAURATE IN THE COLUMNAR MESOPHASE

Oriented fibres of dicopper tetrakis(dodecanoate) Cu-2(COOC11H23)(4) i nvestigated using the neutron backscattering technique both in the col umnar liquid crystal phase and in the crystalline phase. Differences i n the spectra recorded at various glancing angles in the columnar meso phase, on the timescale 5 x 10(-10) s, were assigned to anisotropic mo tions of the binuclear units within the columns. In the crystalline ph ase, on the 10(-10) time-scale, the fixed-window technique yielded a d etermination of the elastic incoherent structure factor.