Correlating Polymer Crystals via Self-Induced Nucleation

作     者：Hui Zhang Muhuo Yu Bin Zhang Renate Reiter Maximilian Vielhauer Rolf Mülhaupt Jun Xu Günter Reiter 

作者机构：Physikalisches Institut Albert-Ludwigs-Universität 79104 Freiburg Germany State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials College of Materials Science and Engineering Donghua University 201620 Shanghai China Freiburg Materials Research Center (FMF) Albert-Ludwigs-Universität 79104 Freiburg Germany Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry Albert-Ludwigs-Universität 79104 Freiburg Germany Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering Department of Chemical Engineering School of Materials Science and Technology Tsinghua University 100084 Beijing China 

出 版 物：《Physical Review Letters》 (Phys Rev Lett)

年 卷 期：2014年第112卷第23期

页      面：237801-237801页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 0702[理学-物理学] 

基　　金：National Program of China on Key Basic Research Project [2011CB606100] China Scholarship Council (CSC) Sino-German Center for Research Promotion German Science Foundation 

主　　题：CRYSTALLINE polymers NUCLEATION THIN films ISOTACTIC polymers POLYSTYRENE MOLECULAR weights 

摘      要：Crystallizable polymers often form multiple stacks of uniquely oriented lamellae, which have good registry despite being separated by amorphous fold surfaces. These correlations require multiple synchronized, yet unidentified, nucleation events. Here, we demonstrate that in thin films of isotactic polystyrene, the probability of generating correlated lamellae is controlled by the branched morphology of a single primary lamella. The nucleation density ns of secondary lamellae is found to be dependent on the width w of the branches of the primary lamella such that ns∼w−2. This relation is independent of molecular weight, crystallization temperature, and film thickness. We propose a nucleation mechanism based on the insertion of polymers into a branched primary lamellar crystal.