Light scattering of thin azobenzene side-chain polyester layers

Light scattering properties of liquid crystalline and amorphous azobenzene side-chain polyester layers used for optical data storage were examined by means of transmissive scatterometry. Comparative experiments show that the amorphous polyester has significantly lower light scattering characteristics than the liquid crystalline polyester. The amorphous samples have negligible polarization part orthogonal to the incident beam. the liquid crystalline samples have relative high orthogonal polarization part in light scattering, The light scattering results can be used to give a lower limit for the domain size in thin liquid crystalline polyester layers being responsible for the dominant light scattering. The characteristic domain Sizes obtained from the Fourier transformation of polarization microscopic Pictures confirm these values. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.