title: Mesogen-jacketed liquid crystalline polymers.
abstract: This critical review covers the recent progress in the research of mesogen-jacketed liquid crystalline polymers (MJLCPs), special side-on side-chain liquid crystalline polymers with very short spacers or without spacers. MJLCPs can self-organize into supramolecular columnar phases with the polymer chains aligned parallel to one another or smectic phases with the backbones embedded in the smectic layers. The semi-rigid rod-like MJLCP with a tunable rod shape in both length and diameter provides an excellent building block in designing novel rod-coil liquid crystalline block copolymers which can self-assemble into hierarchical supramolecular nanostructures depending on the competition between liquid crystal formation and microphase separation (229 references).
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Fang
authors.initials: XF
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhihao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Xin-Hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: Xing-He
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Er-Qiang
authors.initials: EQ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yuguo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Qi-Feng
authors.initials: QF
authors.lastname: Zhou