The upper panel illustrates the configuration of the SANS experiment. The bottom panel shows the 2D SANS spectra become progressively isotropic as the polymer relaxes the stress.
Scientific Achievement
The upper panel illustrates the configuration of the SANS experiment. The bottom panel shows the 2D SANS spectra become progressively isotropic as the polymer relaxes the stress. (hi-res image)
Revealed how the molecular relaxation of deformed polymers is related in space and time by developing a novel approach for analyzing 2D small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) spectrum.
Significance and Impact
Provided a quantitative method for analyzing the structural anisotropy relaxation of polymers.
Research Details
– Combined precise synthesis and SANS experiments with HPC-enabled non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations on deformed polymer melts.
– Demonstrated that entanglement has a very weak influence on the microscopic mechanism of single-chain structural anisotropy relaxation.
C. N. Lam, W.-S. Xu, W.-R. Chen, Z. Wang, C. B. Stanley, J.-M. Carrillo, D. Uhrig, W. Wang, K. Hong, Y. Liu, L. Porcar, C. Do, G. S. Smith, B. G. Sumpter, and Y. Wang, "Scaling behavior of anisotropy relaxation in deformed polymer," Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 117801 (2018). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.117801
