27-588 Polymer Physics and Morphology

9 units, Carnegie Mellon University

This course introduces the fundamental concepts necessary to understand and determine the structure and properties of polymers in the solid state. The structure of polymers will be discussed with focus on the amorphous, crystalline and liquidcrystalline state. One aim is to provide a student intuition about the organization of polymer molecules in the solid state based on the polymers chemical structure. Particular attention will be given to scattering techniques as a tool to determine polymer structures in solution and the solid state. The glass transition in amorphous polymers as well as the morphology and kinetics of crystal formation in semicrystalline polymers will be discussed in detail. The second part of the course will focus on polymer multicomponent materials. Basic concepts of lattice models will be introduced and applied to predict the phase behavior of polymer blends.

Prerequisites: none listed

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