On the >1 µm scale the morphology of semicrystalline plastics like polyethylene or Nylon features spherulites, “shish-kebabs”, cylinddrites and other crystalline aggregates which strongly affect mechanical and other material properties. Current imaging techniques give only a 2D picture of these objects. Here we sh...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25297-w

Polymorphism of semicrystalline polymers has significant influence on their physical properties, with each form having its advantages and disadvantages. However, real-life polymer processing often results in different coexisting crystal polymorphs, and it remains a challenge to determine their shape, spatial distrib...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.macromol.3c00788

Two-photon confocal laser microscopy was used to obtain three-dimensional (3D) images of the morphology of poly(lactic acid) after shear-induced crystallization. The necessary fluorescence contrast was achieved by doping the polymer with Nile Red. The dye gets partially rejected from the growing crystalline aggregat...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acs.macromol.2c01433