Nature Communications (Feb 2021)

Internal constraints and arrested relaxation in main-chain nematic elastomers

  • Takuya Ohzono,
  • Kaoru Katoh,
  • Hiroyuki Minamikawa,
  • Mohand O. Saed,
  • Eugene M. Terentjev

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21036-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Nematic liquid crystal elastomers (N-LCE) have a slow relaxation, which can prevent their shape recovery. Here, the authors examine mechanical hysteresis in a series of main-chain N-LCE to understand how the inherent nematic order retards and arrests the equilibration.