Morphology,Growth Rate,and Lamellar Thickness of Polymer Crystals

At high supercoolings, isotactic polystyrene and polybutene-1 have a rounded crystal shape, suggesting kinetic roughening. Still, the growth rates of these polymer crystals show the supercooling dependence derived for nucleation controlled growth. On the other hand, isotactic poly-4-methylpentene-1 1,4 trans-polybutadiene at higher crystallization temperatures and polyethylene at high pressures show a rounded crystal shape: thermal roughening. Again, the growth rate is described by the nucleation theory. On the basis of these observations, we propose a crystallization kinetics taking account of the entropic barrier that was originally proposed by Sadler.