Electron Microscopy in Polymer Science

In many fields of research in science, engineering, and medicine, electron microscopy as a method for directly imaging submicroscopic structures has become increasingly important in recent decades. Electron microscopy (EM) includes several different techniques: conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM), highvoltage electron microscopy (HVEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), analytical electron microscopy (AEM), emission electron microscopy (EEM), and others. In the past the central aim of using electron microscopy was structure determination, but recently it has been of growing importance for also investigating different processes, i.e., changes in materials by interaction with several influential factors (e.g., heat, electric or mechanic fields, mechanical loading). Of particular interest is the study of the micromechanical processes of deformation and fracture. Therefore, electron microscopy is a very powerful tool for materials science. The present review reports on some capabilities and limitation of the application of electron microscopy to solid polymers. In Section II the techniques of electron microscopy are briefly reviewed, followed by a section that describes the main methods of specimen preparation of solid polymeric materials. In Section IV the results of several applications of electron microscopy are discussed to reveal the morphology as well as the micromechanical deformation processes of several polymeric materials.