Statistical physics of liquid-crystalline polymers

Abstract

The current status of the physics of liquid-crystalline polymers is reviewed. Major attention is paid to the theory of the nematic state of solutions and melts of polymers of varying architecture, and also of polyelectrolytes. The conditions for phase equilibrium in solutions and melts and the elastic properties of systems are studied, as well as light scattering in the region of a nematic phase transition and the dynamic properties of rigid-chain polymers.