| Abstract
| - Copolymers composed of various amounts of 4‘-(11-acryloyloxyundecyloxy)biphenyl-4-carboxylic acid (11ABA) and acrylic acid (AA), poly(11ABA-co-AA)s, were synthesized, and their liquidcrystalline structures were investigated both in dry and in water-swollen states. Wide- and small-angleX-ray studies revealed that both dry and swollen poly(11ABA-co-AA)s show a liquid crystalline structure,which transforms from smectic C with the bilayer (SmC2) to smectic C with the monolayer (SmC1), whenthe 11ABA composition, F([11ABA]/([11ABA] + [AA])), decreases from 0.72 to 0.44. The phase diagramof these copolymers was established by changing F and the temperature. It shows that the samples canbuild up a liquid crystalline structure for F as low as 0.07 at the elevated temperature of 155 °C. Theenhanced ordering of the liquid crystalline structure and the thermostability of the copolymers wereexplained in terms of hydrogen bonding formed between carboxyls of mesogenic side chains and AA.
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