Sectorization of Macromolecular Single Crystals Unveiled by Probing Shear Anisotropy.

ACS Macro Lett

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, 5 King's College Road, Toronto, M5S 3G8, Canada.

Published: January 2022


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Article Abstract

Polymer single crystals continue to infiltrate emerging technologies such as flexible organic field-effect transistors because of their excellent translational symmetry and chemical purity. However, owing to the methodological challenges, direct imaging of the polymer chains folding direction resulting in sectorization of single crystals has rarely been investigated. Herein, we directly image the sectorization of polymer single crystals through anisotropic elastic deformation on the surface of macromolecular single crystals. A variant of friction force microscopy, in which the scanning direction of the probe tip is parallel with the cantilever axis, allows for high contrast imaging of the sectorization in polymer single crystals. The lateral deflection of the cantilever resulting from shear forces transverse to the scan direction shows a close connection with the in-plane components of the elastic tensor of the polymer single crystals, which is of a fundamentally different origin than the friction forces. This allows for fast, facile, and nondestructive characterization of the microstructure and in-plane elastic anisotropy of compliant crystalline materials such as polymers.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00603DOI Listing

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