High-Temperature Gel Permeation Chromatography System for Optical Polymers Research.

摘要

A high-temperature gel permeation chromatograph has been acquired for the measurement of absolute molecular weight distribution to support a MURI program on Tunable Optical Polymer Systems. Conjugated polymers have been actively pursued over the past two decades for electronic, optical, photonic, and optoelectronic applications. In the last few years, liquid crystalline conjugated polymers have begun to attract attention because of their ability to self-organize. One can now imagine taking advantage of the new optical properties originating in ordered conjugated systems. Nonmesogenic conjugated polymers are known to effect electrochromism and voltage-tunable light emission, and non conjugated mesogenic liquid crystals (chiral- nematics in particular) are known to effect tunable selective reflection. As a major challenge, chiral- nematic conjugated polymers are being designed and synthesized to accomplish all three modes of tunability across the visible and infrared region for defense and civilian applications. In addition, we are developing novel conjugated oligomers configured in a three-dimensional space to effect control of nanoscale morphology critical to optoelectronic properties, for which a manuscript is attached to illustrate our molecular design concept.