Orientational Ordering in Sequence-Disordered Liquid Crystalline Polymers

TL;DR

This paper uses field theory to analyze how chemical disorder influences phase separation and orientational ordering in sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, revealing a critical disorder threshold that prevents ordering.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework to understand the impact of chemical disorder on phase behavior and orientational order in liquid crystalline polymers.

Findings

Chemical disorder slightly affects biphasic coexistence width.

Strongly impacts the degree of orientational ordering.

Above a critical disorder threshold, ordering is suppressed.

Abstract

Phase separation of sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, a promising class of technological and biological relevance, is studied by field theory, and thermodynamic mechanisms responsible for orientational ordering observed in experiments, are discussed. The theory developed predicts that chemical disorder marginally affects the nematic/isotropic biphasic coexistence width, but strongly impacts ordering; above a critical chemical disorder threshold orientational ordering is precluded.