Alignment of Hydrogen Bonded Liquid Crystalline Block Copolymers by Magnetic Fields

Hydrogen bonding between a poly(styrene-b-acrylic acid) backbone and an imidazole terminated biphenyl mesogen results in the formation of a side-group liquid crystalline block copolymer (LC BCP). We use a combination of FTIR, X-ray scattering and DSC to characterize the phase behavior of the PAA-LC system, which is largely dominated by the sub-stoichiometric saturation of the binding capacity of the chain. Alignment of a hierarchically ordered lamellar BCP was performed using a 5 T magnetic field at elevated temperature in the melt state and characterized by SAXS. The system exhibits a tilted smectic structure, which on alignment by the field displays scattering patterns akin to those observed in bookshelf or chevron-type structures. These results demonstrate that simple non-covalent interactions can be used to generate LC order and thus provide a convenient handle for subsequent alignment of BCP structures by magnetic fields.