Comparative study of the collective mode dynamics in ferroelectric liquid crystalline monomers and their corresponding copolymers

A comparative dielectric dispersion study of the soft mode dynamics of monomeric FLC compounds and the corresponding siloxane copolymers is presented. The results show that although the relaxation frequency is two orders of magnitude smaller for the copolymer, the dielectric strength remains the same as in the monomer, supporting our earlier observation that the magnitude of some static properties are not altered by copolymerisation. We also present detailed temperature dependence of the rotational viscosity associated with the ferroelectric switching for two compounds belonging to the same homologous series and their corresponding copolymers. Polymerisation is seen to significantly enhance the magnitude of the rotational viscosity.