Pretransitional phenomena in acrylate-based liquid crystal networks

The static Kerr effect is used to study the pretransitional phenomena in po lymer networks even in the presence of inherent optical anisotropy of cross linked materials. The pretransitional phenomena in a liquid crystal polymer and its networks are sensitive to the structure of the crosslinks and thei r distribution within the network. The bulky network junctions distributed more or less homogeneously within the network serve as defects which decrea se the hypothetical second order phase transition temperature T* and suppre ss the nematic fluctuations in the polymer network above the clearing point .