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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 6: Crystallization, Nucleation and Self Assembly I (joint session CPP/ DY)

DY 6.3: Invited Talk

Monday, March 16, 2015, 10:00–10:30, PC 203

Direct observation of prefreezing at the interface melt-solid in polymer crystallization — Ann-Kristin Löhmann, Thomas Henze, and •Thomas Thurn-Albrecht — Institute of Physics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle, Germany

The microscopic ordering process that a liquid undergoes during crystallization is often initiated at an interface to a solid. This observation is classically explained by the assumption of a reduced barrier for crystal nucleation at the interface. However, an interface can also induce crystallization by prefreezing, i.e., the formation of a crystalline layer that is already stable above the bulk melting temperature. We present an atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based in situ observation of a prefreezing process at the interface of a polymeric model system and a crystalline solid, namely polyethylene on graphite. Explicitly, we show the existence of an interfacial ordered layer that forms well above the bulk melting temperature with thickness that increases on approaching melt-solid coexistence. Below the melting temperature, the ordered layer initiates crystal growth into the bulk, leading to an oriented, homogeneous semicrystalline structure.