Micellelike aggregates in solutions of semirigid hairy-rod polymers

Abstract

An anomalous aggregation of hairy-rod segments generating nanoscale disklike domains is found to occur in the solution of the semirigid polymer at concentrations well below the threshold lyotropic concentration. These aggregate domains are micellelike in the sense that they exist in equilibrium with a dilute isotropic phase consisting of well dissolved segments. The origin of this aggregation is relevant to the connectivity and amphiphicility of the hairy-rod segments and this process could prevail among semirigid polymers with the disklike domains serving as the nuclei for the development of macroscopic nematic phase as one increases the polymer concentration.