Chain Confinement and Anomalous Diffusion in the Cross over Regime between Rouse and Reptation

By neutron spin echo (NSE) and pulsed field gradient (PFG) NMR, we study the dynamics of a polyethylene-oxide melt (PEO) with a molecular weight in the transition regime between Rouse and reptation dynamics. We analyze the data with a Rouse mode analysis allowing for reduced long wavelength Rouse modes amplitudes. For short times, subdiffusive center-of-mass mean square displacement ⟨r_com²(t)⟩ was allowed. This approach captures the NSE data well and provides accurate information on the topological constraints in a chain length regime, where the tube model is inapplicable. As predicted by reptation for the polymer ⟨r_com²(t)⟩, we experimentally found the subdiffusive regime with an exponent close to μ=12, which, however, crosses over to Fickian diffusion not at the Rouse time, but at a later time, when the ⟨r_com²(t)⟩ has covered a distance related to the tube diameter.