The crystalline core of the row structures in isotactic polystyrene. I. Nucleation and growth

The nucleation and growth of the crystalline core in the row structures of isotactic polystyrene were investigated by transmission electron microscopy. The number of core crystals, nucleated at a specific temperature, depends on the external strain. Their length was found to increase with time if the sample is kept at the straining temperature. If a strained sample is cooled to room temperature and subsequently reheated, no further growth of the core crystals is observed. Obstacles in the path of growth were circumvented by local changes of the growing direction. Melt-soluble noncrystallizable molecules are rejected by the growing core into the surrounding melt. The observations suggest a growth mechanism of the cores based on the successive self-induced alignment of molecules at the tip of the growing cores.     

Stress-induced textures in polymers

The effect of an applied stress on the annealing texture of polyethylene is demonstrated by means of stress annealing experiments. Cold-drawn polyethylene specimens were annealed for various times at 126°C with and without a compression stress of 0.4 kg/mm² normal to the drawing direction. The observed change in the annealing texture resulting from the compression stress indicates that stress-induced alignment of the crystalline regions in the polyethylene occurs (stress-induced texture). The alignment may be understood in terms of the elastic energy stored in the material during annealing. The stored elastic energy is minimized by aligning the crystallites such that the crystallographic direction of lowest modulus is parallel to the direction of the applied stress. The importance of this observation for the interpretation of the high-temperature deformation textures of polymers is discussed.     

Growth of polymer crystals during annealing

Observations by transmission electron microscopy are reported on the processes involved in polymer crystal growth during annealing. The observations suggest that crystal growth occurs by two processes. One process involves the melting of those regions of the crystals in which the melting point is lower than the annealing temperature. The polymer melt due to the melting process gradually becomes incorporated into the unmolten crystals, resulting in crystal growth. The alternative process is solid-state crystal growth by the migration of the amorphous region between crystallites.     

Theoretical results concerning the influence of non‐random‐field defects

We shall focus on extended defect systems and review their critical behavior. Primarily, with two aims, one of which is to understand phase transitions and how to derive effective dimension of extended defects with various structures, and the other is to propose a new research-method for defect systems, we let extended defects grow on a triangular lattice with frustration in a similar fashion to diffusion-limited aggregation, and discuss the situation. The existence of phase transitions, phase diagram, effective defect dimension, etc. will be shown. Furthermore, we shall summarize theoretical studies of extended defect systems on phase diagrams, critical behavior, tricritical behavior, and crossover behavior as static properties, and on nonconserved systems and conserved systems as dynamic properties.