Epitaxial crystallization of isotactic poly(methyl methacrylate) on highly oriented polyethylene

The annealing behavior of amorphous i-PMMA thin films on highly oriented HDPE substrates was studied by transmission infrared spectroscopy and electron diffraction. The i-PMMA thin film on highly oriented HDPE exhibits a much faster crystallization rate than usual, providing not only a good method for the preparation of crystalline i-PMMA thin and ultrathin film, but also the convenience to observe the crystallization process by infrared spectroscopy in situ. The overall crystallization kinetics of the i-PMMA thin film on the highly oriented HDPE layer was also explored in this work, and an Avrami exponent of about 2 was obtained. The accelerated crystallization behavior indicates a special interaction between HDPE and i-PMMA, which favors the nucleation and crystallization of i-PMMA. This special interaction leads also to an oriented alignment of i-PMMA on the HDPE substrate with both polymer chains parallel, i.e., the occurrence of heteroepitaxy, which could be verified by the polarized infrared spectra and electron diffraction pattern. Electron diffraction analysis further demonstrated that the contact planes of this epitaxial system are (100) lattice planes of both polymers. This can be explained in terms of a two-dimensional lattice matching.