SIMULATIONAL APPROACH TO CRYSTALLIZATION OF FINITE POLYMER-CHAINS AT HIGH SUPERCOOLINGS

A Monte-Carlo simulation has been carried out to study the crystalliza tion of polymers at high supercoolings on a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. Two restrictions due to the characteristics of polymer chains are imposed: (1) each crystallizing unit is connected to another one to form polymer chains and (2) the length of each chain is finite. A c ircular crystal with ragged edges is obtained under the conditions tha t the ratio of the nucleation rate in and the step propagation rate v/ a is 10(-2), where a is width of a site. Without these restrictions, t he resulting crystal has a hexagonal morphology under the same conditi on of ia(2)/v. This indicates that an intermediate growth mode appears between nucleation controlled growth mode and adhesive growth mode on ly in the case of polymer crystallization. The growth rate G depends o n i as G approximate to root i up to ia(2)/v = 10(-2), both with and w ithout the above restrictions.