High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is a common industrial polymer whose physical properties arise from its semi-crystalline structure. Currently, methods to characterize the crystallinity of HDPE include X-ray diffraction (XRD) and density measurement tests using Archimède's principle. A new alternative is to use vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy (VSFG), a nonlinear optical system that is sensitive to molecular orientations at the surface. Using XRD, density testing, and VSFG, we hope to correlate changes in VSFG response to changes in the degree of crystallinity of HDPE. This will demonstrate VSFG as a viable technique to characterize semi-crystalline polymers when X-ray or density methods are not possible.

Characterizing the crystallinity of high-density polyethylene using sum frequency generation spectroscopy

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