Development of Polymer Materials with Synchrotron and Neutron

Abstract

In order to develop excellent polymer materials, it is necessary to understand the functions required for the materials and design molecular structures, compounding, and so on, based on the logical understanding the mechanisms to make the functions appear. In the polymer materials, the hierarchical structures ranging from atomic level to nano and micron scale are formed in which various structures such as crystal structure, cross-linked network structure, and phase separation structure exist. Furthermore, when different materials from polymers such as carbon black, silica, fibers are compounded, the hierarchical structures formed by the different materials themselves and structures at the interfaces between the polymers and the different materials are formed. The origins of the polymeric materials' functions are the above-mentioned structures themselves and the creation of excellent polymeric materials is realized only by precisely controlling them. Development of quantum beam technology such as synchrotron radiation X-ray and neutron in recent years have brought dramatic improvement of evaluation on these structures not only in the academic fields but also in the industrial fields. We can clarify the mechanisms to make the functions appear, which could not be clarified by in-house equipment alone, by using the quantum beams. Some research by the quantum beams are introduced in this report.