Chain Trajectory, Chain Packing, and Molecular Dynamics of Semicrystalline Polymers as Studied by Solid-State NMR

Chain-level structure of semicrystalline polymers inmelt-and solution-grown crystals has been debated over the past half century. Recently, C-13-C-13 double quantum(DQ) NuclearMagnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been successfully applied to investigate chain-folding (CF) structure and packing structure of C-13 enriched polymers after solution and melt crystallization. We review recent NMR studies for (i) packing structure, (ii) chain trajectory, (iii) conformation of the folded chains, (iv) nucleation mechanisms, (v) deformation mechanism, and (vi) molecular dynamics of semicrystalline polymers.