Main-chain smectic liquid-crystalline polymers as randomly disordered systems

We report a high-resolution X-ray lineshape study of main-chain smectic polymers. The results indicate that the layer ordering differs fundamentally from the algebraic decay typical for other smectic liquid-crystalline systems. The lineshapes are best described by broad squared Lorentzians indicating some form of short-range correlations. However, several higher harmonics are observed, which excludes simple liquid-like short-range order. This behaviour is tentatively attributed to a random field of defects associated with entangled hairpins in the main-chain polymer structure.