LASER-INITIATED POLYMERIZATION OF A MESOMORPHIC MONOMER AND THE RESULTANT MOLECULAR-WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION

In this brief note, we address one interesting question concerning polymerization in liquid crystalline media: What effect does polymerization in an anisotropic, mesomorphic medium have on the molecular weight distribution of the resultant polymers(see ref 4 for a critical analysis of the literature with respect to this and other questions dealing with various aspects of the polymerization of liquid crystalline systems)? We have elected to monitor the relative molecular weight distributions of polymers generated by exposure to single pulses from an excimer laser to answer this question.