TABLE OF CONTENTS In 1923, Vorlander attempted to synthesize long liquid-crystal-forming molecules by connecting benzene rings together at their para positions using esther linkages (Vorlander 1923). He noted that the melting point of these materials increases rapidly with increasing molecular length. This work culminated in the synthesis of poly(?-benzamide); its melting point, however, was so high that it charred before melting. The problem of achieving a lower melting point for such materials was finally overcome by Jackson and coworkers at Eastman Kodak, by using random copolymers of aromatic polyesters (Jackson and Kuhfuss 1976). Meanwhile, starting in the 1930s, it was noticed that when viruses, such as tobacco mosaic, cucumber, and potato viruses, were dissolved at high concentration in solution, they formed birefringent phases (Bawden and Pirie 1937; Donald and Windle 1992). After this discovery, the possibility of using solutions of rigid molecules to make artificial silk was recognized; and in England, polyglutamates in particular poly(?-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG) was synthesized. Its solution properties were studied in detail by Robinson et al. (1958). The first commercially successful lyotropic (solvent-based) liquid-crystalline polymer (LCP) was synthesized at the Du Pont Laboratories by Kwolek (1971), as well as in a parallel effort at Akzo Chemical. These efforts, combined with the publication of Jackson and Kuhfuss' seminal paper on thermotropic (solvent-free) LCPs in 1976, led to an explosion of scientific and engineering interest in LCP's that continues to this day.
LCPs are commercially interesting because of their unusual bulk properties and their processability, resulting from chain stiffness and high molecular...
