Isothermal growth, thickening and melting of poly(ethylene-oxide) single crystals in the bulk

Growth, thickening and melting of poly(ethylene-oxide) single crystals, grown from the melt, have been investigated using three fractions of nearly the same chain length. The data are compared to and complement previous work, which is briefly recalled. The new results mainly concern the behavior of siamese twin-lamellae simultaneously grown from the same seed, modelling shish kebabs. On the other hand, the impact of a diphenyl group at one chain end is investigated in a systematic manner. The results show that these small modifications in the constitution of the crystals and in one of the chain ends give rise to rather large and often spectacular effects. The implications of these are discussed in terms of the detailed molecular conformations and mobility in the crystal lattice, in connection with current understanding of chain folding in lamellar polymer crystals.