Lamellar morphology of polyethylene: Electron microscopy of a melt-crystallized sharp fraction

The morphology of linear polyethylene of M_w/M_n 1.19 crystallized isothermally from the melt has been investigated. Electron microscopy (EM) of stained thin sections gave exceptionally well-defined images. There were no qualitative differences between Regime I and Regime II crystallization, but the lamellae grown at lower supercooling were thicker, larger, and had fewer spiral growths per unit area of fold surface. Small-angle x-ray scattering indicated a much sharper distribution of lamellar thicknesses than EM and Raman LAM did. This is evidence of the complementary nature of the techniques and not a contradiction. EM also revealed nonrepresentative features in detail. There were extremely thin lamellae formed on cooling, indicating molecular weight segregation even in this fractionated material, and there were extremely thick lamellae, attributed to isothermal thickening. As the representative lamellae are also supposed to have thickened isothermally, this raises the issue of when and how the lamellae which are the primary products of crystallization can be identified.