TY - JOUR
T1 - Controlled Diels–Alder “Click” Strategy to Access Mechanically Aligned Main-Chain Liquid Crystal Networks
AU - Guillen Campos, Jesus
AU - Stricker, Friedrich
AU - Clark, Kyle D.
AU - Park, Minwook
AU - Bailey, Sophia J.
AU - Kuenstler, Alexa S.
AU - Hayward, Ryan C.
AU - Read de Alaniz, Javier
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Prof. Rudolf Zentel for immensely helpful conversations. This research reported here was supported by the Office of Naval Research through the MURI on Photomechanical Materials Systems (ONR N00014‐18‐1‐2624). The authors acknowledge the National Science Foundation (NSF) (grant no. MRI‐1920299) for the acquisition of Bruker 500 MHz and 400 MHz NMR instruments. MP was partially supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (grant no. 2020R1 A6 A3 A03037524).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
PY - 2023/1/2
Y1 - 2023/1/2
N2 - Aligned liquid crystal polymers are materials of interest for electronic, optic, biological and soft robotic applications. The manufacturing and processing of these materials have been widely explored with mechanical alignment establishing itself as a preferred method due to its ease of use and widespread applicability. However, the fundamental chemistry behind the required two-step polymerization for mechanical alignment has limitations in both fabrication and substrate compatibility. In this work we introduce a new protection-deprotection approach utilizing a two-stage Diels–Alder cyclopentadiene-maleimide step-growth polymerization to enable mild yet efficient, fast, controlled, reproducible and user-friendly polymerizations, broadening the scope of liquid crystal systems. Thorough characterization of the films by DSC, DMA, POM and WAXD show the successful synthesis of a uniaxially aligned liquid crystal network with thermomechanical actuation abilities.
AB - Aligned liquid crystal polymers are materials of interest for electronic, optic, biological and soft robotic applications. The manufacturing and processing of these materials have been widely explored with mechanical alignment establishing itself as a preferred method due to its ease of use and widespread applicability. However, the fundamental chemistry behind the required two-step polymerization for mechanical alignment has limitations in both fabrication and substrate compatibility. In this work we introduce a new protection-deprotection approach utilizing a two-stage Diels–Alder cyclopentadiene-maleimide step-growth polymerization to enable mild yet efficient, fast, controlled, reproducible and user-friendly polymerizations, broadening the scope of liquid crystal systems. Thorough characterization of the films by DSC, DMA, POM and WAXD show the successful synthesis of a uniaxially aligned liquid crystal network with thermomechanical actuation abilities.
KW - Click Chemistry
KW - Cyclopentadiene
KW - Diels–Alder
KW - Liquid Crystal Networks
KW - Two-Step Polymerization
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U2 - 10.1002/anie.202214339
DO - 10.1002/anie.202214339
M3 - Article
C2 - 36315038
AN - SCOPUS:85143274723
SN - 1433-7851
VL - 62
JO - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
JF - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
IS - 1
M1 - e202214339
ER -