A STUDY OF STRUCTURE AND PROPERTY CHANGES OF BIODEGRADABLE POLYGLYCOLIDE AND POLY(GLYCOLIDE-co-LACTIDE)FIBERS DURING PROCESSING AND IN VITRO DEGRADATION*

Structure and properties of bioabsorbable polyglycolide (PGA) and poly(glycolide-co-lactide) (PGA-co-PLA)fibers were investigated during several industrial processing stages and in vitro degradation by means of wide-angle X-raydiffraction (WAXD), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and mechanical property tests. In the orientation stage, the PGAfibers were found to have higher degrees of crystallinity than corresponding PGA-co-PLA samples produced under similarconditions. In the hot-stretching and post-annealing stages, after fibers were braided, PGA samples were found to gain morecrystallinity and higher T_g than PGA-co-PLA samples. The higher crystallinity in PGA fibers resulted in a slower rate ofdegradation. DMA results showed that a great deal of internal stress that was built during orientation and hot-stretchingstages was released in the post-annealing stage for a1l PGA and PGA-co-PLA samples. During earlier stages of in vitrodegradation, both PGA and PGA-co-PLA samples exhibited the typical cleavage-induced crystallization mechanism. Theheat shrinkage in the glass transition area was found to disappear after 6-8 days of degradation for all PGA and PGA-co-PLAsamples, indicating the amorphous portions of the polymers lost orientation after a short period in the buffer solution, mostlikely due to relaxation of the cleaved chains.     

Time‐resolved crystallization study of absorbable polymers by synchrotron small‐angle X‐ray scattering

Changes in the lamellar morphology that occurred during the quiescent isothermal crystallization of absorbable poly(p‐dioxanone) (PDS) and PDS/poly(glycolide) block copolymer were studied by synchrotron small‐angle X‐ray scattering. Important morphological parameters such as the lamellar long period, the thicknesses of the crystal and amorphous phases, and the scattering invariant were estimated as a function of time, and trends observed over a wide range of experimental conditions are discussed. Thicker but more perfect lamellae were detected at higher crystallization temperatures. The breadth of the normalized semilog Lorentz‐corrected intensity peak systematically decreased with increasing temperature. In addition, the values of the crystallization half‐time and the Avrami exponent (n = 2.5), determined from the real‐time changes in the lamellar development, showed superb agreement with the bulk crystallinity data generated from other experimental techniques, such as calorimetry and dielectric relaxation spectroscopy. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 39: 153–167, 2001     

Spherulitic growth rates and morphology of absorbable poly(p‐dioxanone) homopolymer and its copolymer by hot‐stage optical microscopy

Hot‐stage optical microscopy was used to study the crystal morphology, nucleation, and spherulitic growth rates of poly(p‐dioxanone) (PDS) homopolymer and an 89/11 PDS/glycolide segmented block copolymer. A wide range of crystallization conditions were experimentally accessible, allowing the inspection of various morphological features and accurate estimations of characteristic growth parameters, including radial growth and nucleation rates. Although the regime analysis of the crystallization kinetics indicated no breaks in the growth rate curve, the isothermal data were in excellent agreement with the Hoffman–Lauritzen theory. Spherulitic growth rates obtained from optical measurements are compared with values of the half‐time of crystallization determined earlier by differential scanning calorimetry. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 39: 3073–3089, 2001     

On observability of N-level quantum systems

The purpose of this paper is to discuss necessary and sufficient conditions for observability of N-level quantum systems. We assume that the information about a physical system is given by the mean values Tr(?(t_j)A_i) = m_Ai(t_j), of n self-adjointoperators A₁,…,A_n on $\text{H}$ at some instants t₁ < t₂ <…<t_s. The question of theminimal number n of operators A₁,…,A_n (physical quantities $\text{A}{}_1\text{, …,}\text{A}{}_{\mathrm{n}}$) for which the quantum system $\text{S}$ is (A₁,…,A_n)-observableis discussed.