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Abstract
Swelling behavior and deformations of main chain liquid crystal elastomers (MCLCEs) have been reported. The swelling agent used here is a low molecular weight liquid crystal (LMWLC), 4-n-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB). Monodomain MCLCE swells anisotropically with the swelling degree q
mono = 11.9 and polydomain MCLCE swell isotropically in 3D with q
poly
= 12.1. These values are much larger than observed in swelling side-chain LCEs (SCLCEs). In the stress-strain measurement, the plateau area is found among two steep areas. The electromechanical effects of monodomain MCLCE is also observed, and the results show that the maximum contraction in ∥ is about 7%. The threshold for the onset of the electromechanical effect is about 10 V, which is larger than observed in SCLCEs.
Acknowledgments
This work is partially supported by the Japan-Germany Scientific Cooperative Program of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Grant for Scientific Research sponsored by JSPS, and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (No. 21340110, No. 20111003 and No. 19031023). Y. Y. thanks the Research Fellowships of JSPS and Hibah Bersaing XVI and Hibah Kompetensi DIKTI.
