Direct observation of polyethylene shish-kebab crystallization using in-situ atomic force microscopy

Atomic forced microscopy (AFM) results from imaging the crystallization of preprocessed melts revealing the lamellar scale growth as it occurs from oriented molecular backbone were presented. From the height image the molten polymer was approximately 50 nm thick. The backbone was about 9 nm wide (measured width at half-maximum). The closed similarity between melt-crystallized and solution-crystallized morphology was confirmed using nondestructive technique.