Features of the mechanism of liquid-crystalline ordering in thermotropic copolymers with various flexible spacers and highly asymmetric mesogenic fragments

Conformation, orientation, and thermodynamic characteristics of a series of random copolymers containing highly asymmetric mesogenic fragments and fle xible spacers with various lengths and chemical structures were studied by methods of IR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and calorimetry. The molecul ar ordering of a smectic type observed in the polymers studied is explained by complete of partial segregation of the mesogenic chain fragments withou t change in the conformations of flexible spacers characteristic of the cor responding homopolymers. The structural order of these copolymers in the li quid-crystalline state is similar to the order observed in rigid-chain ther motropic random polymers in the same state.