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Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry

By using an atomic force microscope (AFM) coupled to a fast scanning chip calorimeter (FSC), AFM-tip induced crystal nucleation/crystallization in poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) has been studied at low melt-supercooling, that is, at a temperature typically not assessable for melt-crystallization studie...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Rui, Du, Mengxue, Zhuravlev, Evgeny, Androsch, René, Schick, Christoph
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8234991/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34205303
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13122008
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author Zhang, Rui
Du, Mengxue
Zhuravlev, Evgeny
Androsch, René
Schick, Christoph
author_facet Zhang, Rui
Du, Mengxue
Zhuravlev, Evgeny
Androsch, René
Schick, Christoph
author_sort Zhang, Rui
collection PubMed
description By using an atomic force microscope (AFM) coupled to a fast scanning chip calorimeter (FSC), AFM-tip induced crystal nucleation/crystallization in poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) has been studied at low melt-supercooling, that is, at a temperature typically not assessable for melt-crystallization studies. Nanogram-sized PCL was placed on the active/heatable area of the FSC chip, melted, and then rapidly cooled to 330 K, which is 13 K below the equilibrium melting temperature. Subsequent isothermal crystallization at this temperature was initiated by a soft-tapping AFM-tip nucleation event. Crystallization starting at such surface nucleus led to formation of a single spherulite within the FSC sample, as concluded from the radial symmetry of the observed morphology. The observed growth rate in the sub-micron thin FSC sample, nucleated at its surface, was found being much higher than in the case of bulk crystallization, emphasizing a different growth mechanism. Moreover, distinct banding/ring-like structures are observed, with the band period being less than 1 µm. After crystallization, the sample was melted for gaining information about the achieved crystallinity and the temperature range of melting, both being similar compared to much slower bulk crystallization at the same temperature but for a much longer time.
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spelling pubmed-82349912021-06-27 Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry Zhang, Rui Du, Mengxue Zhuravlev, Evgeny Androsch, René Schick, Christoph Polymers (Basel) Communication By using an atomic force microscope (AFM) coupled to a fast scanning chip calorimeter (FSC), AFM-tip induced crystal nucleation/crystallization in poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) has been studied at low melt-supercooling, that is, at a temperature typically not assessable for melt-crystallization studies. Nanogram-sized PCL was placed on the active/heatable area of the FSC chip, melted, and then rapidly cooled to 330 K, which is 13 K below the equilibrium melting temperature. Subsequent isothermal crystallization at this temperature was initiated by a soft-tapping AFM-tip nucleation event. Crystallization starting at such surface nucleus led to formation of a single spherulite within the FSC sample, as concluded from the radial symmetry of the observed morphology. The observed growth rate in the sub-micron thin FSC sample, nucleated at its surface, was found being much higher than in the case of bulk crystallization, emphasizing a different growth mechanism. Moreover, distinct banding/ring-like structures are observed, with the band period being less than 1 µm. After crystallization, the sample was melted for gaining information about the achieved crystallinity and the temperature range of melting, both being similar compared to much slower bulk crystallization at the same temperature but for a much longer time. MDPI 2021-06-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8234991/ /pubmed/34205303 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13122008 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Zhang, Rui
Du, Mengxue
Zhuravlev, Evgeny
Androsch, René
Schick, Christoph
Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title_full Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title_fullStr Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title_full_unstemmed Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title_short Surface Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Poly (ε-caprolactone): Atomic Force Microscopy Combined with Fast Scanning Chip Calorimetry
title_sort surface crystal nucleation and growth in poly (ε-caprolactone): atomic force microscopy combined with fast scanning chip calorimetry
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8234991/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34205303
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13122008
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