Proprietes dielectriques d'une serie de polyoxyethylene (POE) presentant des masses moleculaires lentement variables (200 ≤ Mw ≤ 4 × 106)

In this paper, we present dielectric results for samples of POE (polyethyleneoxyde) divided into three classes. Compounds of low molecular weight ($\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{< 1000}$) show very weak absorption at lower temperatures. At higher temperatures (below the melting point), there appears a very important peak (stronger for lower $\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}$) which corresponds to the supercooled phase. Compounds of intermediate molecular weight ($\text{1000 ≤}\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{≤ 10}{}^5$) show a β relaxation near 250 K (bis$\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{? 3000}$) which is due to the movement of chain-ends in the amorphous phase. This process increases with the importance of that part of the structure formed of shorter lamellae, thus explaining the marked diminution of this absorption for higher molecular weight compounds (the shorter lamellae cannot be obtained for $\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{> 4000}$). The α relaxation (obtained for T > 300 K) is perturbed by an important conduction; however, we have found a peak and a shoulder at lower frequencies, due to shorter and longer lamellae respectively. The shoulder is also present for high molecular weight compounds ($\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{≥ 0.1–10}{}^6$). At lower temperatures, they display a very broad γ absorption, superposed at higher frequencies with a β relaxation. The nature of this β relaxation is different from that observed for the intermediate molecular weight compounds.