SOME COMMENTS ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMPENSATION EFFECT OBSERVEDIN THERMALLY STIMULATED CURRENT EXPERIMENTS

In the present paper are discussed some thermodynamic aspects related with the analysis of the fine structure of the thermally stimulated de polarization currents spectrum. The physical significance of the so-ca lled compensation law is analysed and it is suggested that the lag bet ween the compensation temperature and the glass transition temperature is related to the breadth of the glass transition. It is also shown t hat the plot of Delta s(not equal) vs Delta H-not equal for the differ ent elementary components of the global spectrum shows 'groupings' of relaxations which allow one to distinguish the different relaxation pr ocesses. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.