Thermal Properties and Photo-Polymerization of Diepoxy Monomers with Mesogenic Group

ABSTRACT We synthesized two diepoxy monomers containing a mesogenic group to investigate thermal conductivity of the resulting epoxy resins prepared by photo-polymerization of the monomers. One diepoxy monomer shows an enantiotropic nematic phase, whereas the other displayed enantiotropic smectic A and nematic phases. The epoxy resins were prepared by cationic photo-polymerization of the diepoxy monomers in the liquid-crystalline (LC) state. The structures of LC phases for each diepoxy monomer were fixed in the thin films of epoxy resins. Thermal conductivity of the LC epoxy resins was larger than that of the conventional epoxy resins. The epoxy resin prepared by photo-polymerization of the monomer in the smectic A phase displayed larger thermal conductivity than that in the nematic phase.