Local order in polymer glasses and melts

Abstract

The molecular organization of polymer melts and glasses remains a challenging area of polymer physics. Recent advances in simulation procedures and quantitative atomistic based X-ray and neutron scattering studies have shown most conclusively that the historical view of some level of local parallelism between chain segments to be ill-founded. There are, however, examples of properties and data which suggest that particular specific local correlations may be a widespread phenomena in disordered polymer systems. We explore how the issues of local order have moved on from a simple consideration of local parallelism of chain segments to a consideration of the relationship between the local chemical order and the molecular arrangements. The possibilities afforded by recent developments in broad Q neutron scattering and where appropriate using selective deuteration coupled with atomistic computer simulations are evaluated.