Issue 7, 2003
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Azo-pendant polyamides which have the potential to photoalign chromonic lyotropic liquid crystals

Daisaku Matsunaga,a   Takashi Tamaki*b  and  Kunihiro Ichimurac  

* Corresponding authors

a Nippon Kayaku Co. Ltd., Functional Chemical Research Laboratories, 3-26-8 Shimo, Kita-ku, Tokyo, Japan

b Institute for Materials and Chemical Process, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba Central 5-2, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
E-mail: t.tamaki@aist.go.jp

c Research Institute for Science and Technology, Science University of Tokyo, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda, Chiba, Japan

Abstract

A new series of polyamides (ph-azo-PAMs) was synthesized by the polycondensation of isophthalic acids having a photoisomerizable phenyl azo unit with 4,4′-diamino-3,5,3′,5′-tetraethyldiphenylmethane or by the esterification of poly(imino-5-oxyisophthaloylimino-1,4-(3,5-diethyl)phenylenemethylene-1,4-(3,5-diethyl)phenylene) with 4-(phenylazo)- or 4-(4′-substituted phenylazo)phenoxyalkanoic acid chlorides in the presence of triphenyl phosphate and pyridine in N-methylpyrrolidone. It has been confirmed that the spin-coated films of ph-azo-PAMs thus produced show reversible trans–cis photoisomerization of the azobenzene moieties. To examine the ability of the polymer films to act as command surfaces for a chromonic lyotropic liquid crystal (LLC), they were exposed to linearly polarized light and coated with aqueous LLC solutions of a chromonic dye compound. After drying the LLC solution, polarizing microscopic measurements were carried out to see whether the phototreated polymer films could bring about the in-plane anisotropic alignment of the dye molecule. The result was that 5h having an azo moiety with a dimethylamino substituent as a side group was among the most promising candidates.

Graphical abstract: Azo-pendant polyamides which have the potential to photoalign chromonic lyotropic liquid crystals

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B300254C
Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Jan 2003
Accepted
13 May 2003
First published
29 May 2003

J. Mater. Chem., 2003,13, 1558-1564

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Azo-pendant polyamides which have the potential to photoalign chromonic lyotropic liquid crystals

D. Matsunaga, T. Tamaki and K. Ichimura, J. Mater. Chem., 2003, 13, 1558 DOI: 10.1039/B300254C

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