Liquid‐crystalline elastomers with cholesteric and chiral smectic C^* phases

Abstract

Abstract A series of 9 new chiral and crosslinkable liquid‐crystalline copolymers were synthesized and transformed into liquid‐crystalline elastomers by crosslinking using a hydrosilylation reaction. Both the soluble copolymers and the elastomers show cholesteric, smectic A and chiral smectic C * phases, which are not affected by the crosslinking procedure. First measurements show that the helical superstructure of elastomers with cholesteric and chiral smectic C * phases can be reversibly untwisted by stretching. Thereby a cholesteric structure can be transformed into a nematic structure and a chiral smectic C * structure into a smectic C one.