Structures, phase transitions and orientational properties of the C60 monomer and polymers

Roger Moret1

  • 1Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, UMR CNRS 8502, Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay CEDEX, France. moret@lps.u-psud.fr

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Unlike ionic or small covalent molecules, polymers do not form crystalline solids due to the diffusion limitations of their long-chain structures. However, polymers contain microscopic crystalline domains separated by amorphous domains.
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Copolymers are the products obtained from the polymerization of multiple monomer species. So, in a polymer chain itself, there can be multiple repeating units that come from different monomers. The process of synthesizing a polymer from different monomer species is called copolymerization. When two monomers are involved, the polymer is known as a bipolymer. Polymers with three and four monomers are termed terpolymers and quaterpolymers, respectively. Figure 1 depicts the copolymerization of...
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