Small‐Angle X‐ray Scattering for Morphological Analysis of Semicrystalline Polymers

This chapter discusses the basic principles of a small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiment, beginning with a short description of the typical experimental setup. It presents a mathematical description of the relation between structural properties and scattered intensity measured in a SAXS experiment. In a good approximation, the morphology of a semicrystalline polymer can be described as a lamellar two-phase system consisting of crystalline and amorphous phases with different electron densities and with sharp boundaries between them. The chapter introduces different methods to analyze SAXS data obtained from semicrystalline polymers are introduced and gives examples of their application. While the analysis of SAXS data of semicrystalline polymers based on the calculation of the correlation function or the interface distribution function (IDF) is well established, the parameters describing the semicrystalline morphology are usually simply read off from the correlation function or the IDF.