First, the mesomorphic properties of PMMAzo polymer was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). From Figure S3, it is clear that the glass transition temperature (T g) is 72 °C, a short-range smectic phase transition at 87 °C (Sm-to-N), and a long-range nematic phase transition at 128 °C (T i), respectively. Second, to further examine the chirality induction capability of CTA and CABu to PMMAzo as a composite film, a mixture of PMMAzo and CTA/CABu homogeneously dissolved in a solution (30 mg/mL) at a desired molar ratio was deposited onto a quartz plate by a conventional spin-coating technique at 1900 rpm. As shown in Table 1, nine samples of the composite films comprising PMMAzo and CABu at the desired molar ratio were obtained. The (chir)optical datasets of the composite films were measured by UV-vis and CD spectroscopy.
Table 1. The number-average molecular weight (M n) of PMMAzo-1 to PMMAzo-3. Comparisons between the g CD values at 1st Cotton band of the CABu/PMMAzo composite films and their mass ratio with/without thermal annealing process.