New side‐group liquid‐crystalline polymethacrylates

A new route of synthesis of liquid-crystalline polymethacrylates was investigated. The synthetic route involved side-group liquid-crystalline polymethacrylates (LCPMA) with a turned ester group between the aromatic rings in the central unit of mesogens (2) as compared with the usual LCPMA (1). For a series of compounds of this type the liquid-crystalline properties were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry, polarizing microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques. Generally stable smectic phases were found for these isomeric LCPMA. The described synthetic route opens possibilities to form new polymers from a wide field of educts.