Spontaneous Nematic Alignment in Conjugated-Polymer Gels

Abstract

We report observations of optical birefringence indicative of spontaneous, long-range, nematic alignment in gels of polydiacetylene 4BCMU in toluene. The results indicate that an order parameter with magnitude of only ∼ ${10}^{-2\mathrm{}}$ is maintained over macroscopic distances in an otherwise random system.