A STUDY OF SIDE-CHAIN ORDERING IN ORIENTED RIGID-ROD POLYESTERS

It is shown that the structure of biaxially oriented polyester poly(1,4-phenylene-2,5-di-n-alkoxyterephthalate), with the length of the n-alkoxy side chains being n = 16, can be interpreted as a mixture of incommensurate structures. The principal one describes the ordering of rigid rods using an orthorhombic cell. The structure of side chains in a quickly stretched film is described by a monoclinic and a triclinic cell. An orthorhombic cell helps to describe the slowly stretched film. The monoclinic cell was found on the basis of our model calculations of X-ray scattering on a powder sample of this polyester, documenting that there is a clustering of side chains. Further, the ordering of side chains in the amorphous phase anticipates the interchain distance characteristic for the crystalline-like arrangements of side chains in the biaxially oriented films, because the average distance between side chains calculated from all incommensurate structures is 4.8 Angstrom, i.e. precisely the distance found between clustered side chains in the amorphous phase.