In-situ Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering Elucidates Crystalline-Amorphous Interfaces in Semicrystalline Polymers

Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (RSoXS) reveals spatial correlations of molecular orientation in addition to correlations between chemical species within complex organic thin-films. In polyethylene films (both dry and in solvent), polarization induced RSoXS scattering anisotropy reveals the nature and extent of the molecular orientation between the lamellar crystalline domains. The crystalline-amorphous interface and the connectivity between the crystal layers within these materials is of particular interest for understanding and predicting materials behavior. Near Edge X-ray Fine Structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy measures the complex angle-dependent resonant refractive index, which enables us to predict spectroscopic scattering patterns from different morphologies, and understand the experimental data. Of wide interest to the field, we characterize these systems in environmental cells, in which we have used several solvents including water. This capability is applicable to soft matter solid-liquid systems where chemical-specific molecular orientation and phase segregation is of interest.