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The effect of phthalimide side chains on the thermal stability and rubbing resistance of polyimide used as a liquid crystal vertical alignment layer

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Abstract

Two functional diamines, octyl-4-(3,5-diaminobenzamido)benzoate (O8, containing phenyl rings) and 3,5-diamino-N-(2-octyl-1,3-dioxoisoindolin-5-yl)benzamide (D8, containing a phthalimide ring), were designed and successfully synthesized. Two kinds of PIs were obtained by copolymerizing 3,3′-dimethyl-4,4′-methylenediamine (DMMDA), 4,4′-oxydiphthalic anhydride (ODPA), and D8 or O8. All of the PIs possessed excellent solubility. The PI films exhibited high transmittance, and were able to align liquid crystals (LCs) vertically. In contrast to the PIs generated from O8 (PI-O8), PIs created from D8 (PI-D8) were able to align LCs vertically even after rubbing, and also exhibited better thermal stability. The temperature at which 5 % of the weight of PI-D8 was lost (T 5) was higher than that for PI-O8. The results showed that the introduction of imide groups to the side chain improved the thermal stability and rubbing resistance of PIs without sacrificing their solubility and transmittance.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 51173115), the Ministry of Education (the Foundation for Ph.D. training, grant no. 20110181110030) of China, and the Scientific Research Foundation for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry, and Science (no. 20071108-18-12).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering of China, College of Polymer Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Sichuan, 610065, China

    Senlin Xia, Longfei Yi, Zhen Sun & Yinghan Wang

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  1. Senlin Xia
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  2. Longfei Yi
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Correspondence to Yinghan Wang.

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Xia, S., Yi, L., Sun, Z. et al. The effect of phthalimide side chains on the thermal stability and rubbing resistance of polyimide used as a liquid crystal vertical alignment layer. J Polym Res 20, 219 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-013-0219-0

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