The development of liquid crystalline monomers (so-called reactive mesogens) and their polymerization to form polymer networks that retain liquid crystalline has had far-reaching impact. An emerging use of these materials is to prepare material actuators of considerable interest in applications in robotics, consumer products, and medicine. In this presentation, I will survey the use of oligomerization, chain extension, and chain transfer reactions to prepare elastomeric liquid crystalline polymer networks (LCEs) based on the canonical liquid crystalline monomers developed more than 30 years ago in the PhD thesis of Prof. Dick Broer. Enabled by these chemistries and their amenability to surface-enforced assembly, I will discuss approaches to localize the mechanical response of these materials to yield compelling actuation and programmable deformation. The retention of structural color, enabled by the polymerization of the cholesteric or blue phases, will be highlighted as a route to realize concurrent shape and color change in solid films.

Preparing liquid crystalline elastomers via chain extension reactions of reactive mesogens

ACS Fall 2021

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