title: Pressure-induced structural change of intermediate-range order in poly(4-methyl-1-pentene) melt.
abstract: High-pressure in situ x-ray diffraction and specific-volume measurements on isotactic poly(4-methyl-1-pentene) melt have uncovered abrupt changes in the pressure dependence of microscopic structure as well as that of macroscopic density. The first sharp diffraction peak of the polymer melt, which is related to the intermediate-range order and is explained as resulting from the correlations between main chains, is suppressed at pressures less than 1 kbar. These changes in intermediate-range order show similarities to those seen in liquid-liquid or amorphous-amorphous transitions in simpler small molecule based systems, suggesting that this kind of phenomenon may occur in a wide range of materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Keio University, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan. ayano@phys.keio.ac.jp
authors.forename: Ayano
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chiba
authors.forename: Nobumasa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Funamori
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakayama
authors.forename: Yasuo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ohishi
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Bennington
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rastogi
authors.forename: Anuj
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shukla
authors.forename: Kazuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsuji
authors.forename: Mikihito
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takenaka
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D044367:Phase Transition; D011090:Polyenes / Q000737:chemistry*; D011312:Pressure
chemical_list: D011090:Polyenes; C087577:poly(4-methyl-1-pentene)