The structure of amorphous polymers

Abstract

Over the past ten years the structure of amorphous polymers has been extensively investigated. Publications on this topic were concerned with various aspects of the amorphous structure and were often based on specific molecular models. This review article attempts to discuss the interrelations between the different structural properties which were studied. The topics covered are the short range positional order, the orientational order, the chain conformation, the supermolecular structure and the relation between molecular and macroscopical properties both of the fluid and the glassy state. The basic theory of the fluid state is introduced at the beginning as well as the experimental techniques currently used to characterize the amorphous structure. Experimental results on different amorphous polymers and oligomers are then discussed and the information is pointed out which can be derived from these data. Finally models on the structure of amorphous polymers are considered briefly.