The synthesis of a chiral liquid crystalline monomer (M
LC
) derived from menthol
crosslinking agent (C
A
) and cholesteric elastomer (LCE) is reported. Their chemical structures were characterized with FT-IR and
1
H NMR. The liquid crystalline properties and thermal stability were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
polarizing optical microscopy (POM)
and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The monomer M
LC
exhibited enantiotropic broken fan- shaped of a chiral smectic C (S
C
*
) phase
and oily streak texture and focal conic texture of cholesteric phase on heating and cooling cycles. The crosslinking agent C
A
showed fan-shaped texture of a smectic A (S
A
) phase and thread texture of nematic phase. The elastomer LCEshowed cholesteric Grandjean texture because of the introduction of the nematic crosslinking unit. This indicated that lightly crosslinked elastomer showed the basic features of polymeric networks with anisotropic physical properties with reversible phase transition during heating and subsequent cooling. The glass transition temperature and clearing temperature of LCEwere 10. 5 and 176. 2℃
respectively. TGA showed that LCEhad a good stability
and the temperature at which 5% weight loss occurred was 339℃.