The dynamic birefringence and viscoelasticity were measured for poly(e
thylene naphthalene-2,6-dicarboxylate), and the contributions from the
main chain orientation and the rotational orientation of repeating un
it to the strain-induced birefringence were evaluated. The values, tog
ether with published ones for other glassy polymers, were compared wit
h the anisotropy of polarizability tensor of the repeating units. The
contribution from the main chain orientation for various polymers was
in accord with that evaluated from the excess polarizability of the un
it in the main chain direction assuming a quasi-affine orientation of
the unit. The contribution from the rotation was well correlated with
the anistropy in the plane perpendicular to the chain axis. The degree
of the rotational orientation was similar among the polymers. The rot
ational orientation was high for vinyl polymers with large side-groups
. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.