The work presented in this thesis is divided into three chapters. In Chapter 1 a general overview is presented of short/long range ordering in polymers. Chapter 2 then discusses the use of vibrational spectroscopy to probe the short range conformational order present in a series of Langmuir films at the air-water interface. Finally, the use of vibrational spectroscopy to probe the long range conformational order in a bulk polymer, poly($\beta$-hydroxybutyrate) is presented in Chapter 3. Using external reflection infrared spectroscopy, we were able to directly characterize the structure of series of "hairy-rod" polymers at the air-water interface. The overall structure of the films were related to the short range conformational order of long side groups attached to the rigid-rod backbones. The structure of the films were also studied as a function of surface packing density at the air-water interface by the use of a Langmuir trough coupled directly to the external reflection infrared spectroscopy setup. A Raman active longitudinal acoustic mode capable of probing the long range conformational order associated with crystalline regions was discovered for the biodegradable thermoplastic, poly($\beta$-hydroxybutyrate). The dependence of this mode on the fold length of crystalline lamella was clearly established. The annealing behavior of single crystals of poly($\beta$-hydroxybutyrate) was also studied.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-2915 |
| Date | 01 January 1997 |
| Creators | Chien, Bert |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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