Polymer Blends and Block Copolymers

Abstract

The Physics of Polymers presents the elements of this important segment of material science, focusing on concepts above experimental techniques and theoretical methods. Written for graduate students of physics, material science and chemical engineering and for researchers working with polymers in academia and industry, the book introduces and discusses the basic phenomena which lead to the peculiar physical properties of polymeric systems. After more than ten years, with many thousands copies in use, the time has come for a revision and expansion this popular work. The revised and expanded Third Edition includes: A new chapter dealing with conjugated polymers, explaining the physical basis of the characteristic electro-optic response, and the spectacular electrical conduction properties of conjugated polymers created by doping. Polyelectrolyte solutions with their special properties caused by Coulomb forces are newly treated, in chapters of the book dealing with ordering phenomena, the unusually high viscosit and the superswelling of gels. Since basic understanding of melt crystallization has greatly changed during the last decade, the corresponding chapter has. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.