Phase behaviour of nematic liquid crystal/hyperbranched polymer systems

The phase behaviours of the nematic liquid crystal EBBA (4-ethoxybenzyliden e-4'-n-butylaniline) in hyperbranched polymers are investigated by thermo-o ptical analysis. We adopt Freed's lattice cluster theory to describe the st ructures of the hyperbranched polymers. To account for highly oriented inte ractions between segments, our proposed model requires an additional parame ter (delta epsilon /k) related to the energy of the orientated interaction, Calculated values using the proposed model show a remarkably good agreemen t with experimental data for the given system.