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The polymer backbone of a side‐chain liquid crystal polymer exhibits an anisotropic shape due to the coupling of the liquid crystal orientational order of the mesogenic side‐chains to the backbone. The magnitude and sign of this coupling may be controlled by chemical design. The introduction of chemical cross‐links in to such a system provides both a memory of the anisotropic organisation and a mechanism by which the microscopic anisotropy can be realised at a macroscopic level. We show how this anisotropic network structure yields new phenomena when electric or mechanical fields are applied.

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