Characterization of main-chain liquid crystal elastomers using x-ray diffraction method

Abstract

We characterized the four main chain liquid crystal elastomers (MCLCEs) samples using the x-ray diffraction method. The four samples had different concentration of crosslinkers, i.e 8%, 12%, 14% and 16%. There was a relationship between crosslinkers concentration and d-spacing parameter here, namely when the concentration increased the d-spacing parameter did, too. In polymeric material, the d-spacing parameter indicates the average of length between dominant clusters of the heavy molecule. We also calculated the degree of crystallinity and amorphousinity based on the difractogram obtained from the characterization and associated them to their mechanical properties. We found that as the degree of crystallinity decreased (or degree of amorphousinity increased) the sample will be more elastic, and vice versa.