Lamellar structures of banded spherulites of poly(e-caprolactone)/poly(vinylchloride) (PCL/PVC) blends are observed using tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM). Thesurface of the PCL/PVC banded spherulites presen...Lamellar structures of banded spherulites of poly(e-caprolactone)/poly(vinylchloride) (PCL/PVC) blends are observed using tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM). Thesurface of the PCL/PVC banded spherulites presents to be concentric periodic ups and downs. Theperiod of the bands corresponds to the extinction rings under the polarized optical microscopyobservation. The lamellae with edge-on orientation in the ridges and the flat-on lamellae in thevalleys of the banded spherulites are observed clearly. The twisting between the edge-on and flat-onlamellae is also observed.展开更多
Crystallization of flexible polymer chains reveals distinct characters compared to small molecules, which provides a platform to study molecular self-assembly and morphogenesis. In this review, some examples, e.g., tw...Crystallization of flexible polymer chains reveals distinct characters compared to small molecules, which provides a platform to study molecular self-assembly and morphogenesis. In this review, some examples, e.g., twisting chirality of polymer lamellar crystals, recognition of different chain units and competitive nucleation of different polymorphs and different lamellar thicknesses are briefly discussed. It is shown that the polymer crystallization process far from equilibrium is in practically minimization of the system free energy in local space and finite time, leading to formation of twisted crystals, metastable polymorphism and lamellar crystals with finite thickness. Though each molecule is blind to others, the peculiar ordered configurations with stronger long-range interactions are chosen from the enormous random trials. At the end, we list some remaining questions and outlook the perspectives.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.20174049 and 20131160730)
文摘Lamellar structures of banded spherulites of poly(e-caprolactone)/poly(vinylchloride) (PCL/PVC) blends are observed using tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM). Thesurface of the PCL/PVC banded spherulites presents to be concentric periodic ups and downs. Theperiod of the bands corresponds to the extinction rings under the polarized optical microscopyobservation. The lamellae with edge-on orientation in the ridges and the flat-on lamellae in thevalleys of the banded spherulites are observed clearly. The twisting between the edge-on and flat-onlamellae is also observed.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21374054)Fund of Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials of Ministry of Education (No. 2017AML07) for financial support
文摘Crystallization of flexible polymer chains reveals distinct characters compared to small molecules, which provides a platform to study molecular self-assembly and morphogenesis. In this review, some examples, e.g., twisting chirality of polymer lamellar crystals, recognition of different chain units and competitive nucleation of different polymorphs and different lamellar thicknesses are briefly discussed. It is shown that the polymer crystallization process far from equilibrium is in practically minimization of the system free energy in local space and finite time, leading to formation of twisted crystals, metastable polymorphism and lamellar crystals with finite thickness. Though each molecule is blind to others, the peculiar ordered configurations with stronger long-range interactions are chosen from the enormous random trials. At the end, we list some remaining questions and outlook the perspectives.