Chiral Interactions in Polymer Liquid Crystals Reflecting Polymer Conformations: Triple-Helical Polysaccharide Schizophyllan and Poly(γ-benzyl <scp>l</scp>-glutamate)

Abstract

Cholesteric pitch P was measured on D2O solutions of a triple-helical polysaccharide schizophyllan as functions of temperature and concentration. The value of P varied with concentration and temperature and showed different concentration dependencies at lower and higher temperatures, with a sudden decrease in P in between. This is due to the order−disorder transition in schizophyllan solutions around 17 °C in D2O. These data were analyzed by a statistical theory taking into account chiral repulsive and attractive interactions proposed by Sato et al. A subtle imbalance between the attractive and repulsive interactions gave rise to a large change in P. For the schizophyllan solutions, the attractive interaction changed according to the transition, while the change of the repulsive one was less remarkable. Similar analyses were performed on poly(γ-benzyl l-glutamate) data, elucidating the roles of the two interactions in determining the cholesteric structure.