The morphological features of side-on fixed liquid crystalline polymer
s in an oriented state are investigated using polarizing microscopy, s
mall angle light scattering (SALS) and infra-red dichroism techniques.
A conventional side-chain polymer with mesogenic units attached longi
tudinally to the backbone is also studied for comparison. Banded textu
re usually only reported for main-chain liquid crystalline polymers is
observed for these side-on fixed polymers under the crossed polarizin
g microscope, and SALS measurements also show typical grating diffract
ion patterns. This implies that side-on fixed rigid mesogens may signi
ficantly affect the conformation of the main chain of molecules, and t
he molecule as a whole may become rather rigid, exhibiting behaviour s
imilar to that of the main chain. Infra-red dichroism measurements ind
icate that the main-chain axes of the molecules tend to orient in dire
ctions close to the shear direction. The side-on fixed mesogens are pa
cked around the backbone, but their axes are not parallel to the latte
r.