Film morphologies, unique properties

Liquid crystalline polymers have been discussed in many texts and review papers [65, 400-413] during the last decade, in which the synthesis, processing, morphology, orientation and structure-property relations are described. The major applications of these materials have been as high modulus fibers and films, with unique properties due to the formation of ordered lyotropic solutions or thermotropic melts which transform easily into highly oriented, extended chain structures in the solid state. 

Polymer/sihca composite blends, not only improve the physical properties, snch as the mechanical properties and thermal properties of the materials, but they can also exhibit some unique properties that have attracted strong interest in many industries. Besides common plastics and rubber reinforcanent, many other potential and practical applications of this type of nanocomposites have been reported coatings, flame-retardant materials, optical devices, electronics and optical packaging materials, photo resist materials, photo-luminescent conducting film, per-vaporation membrane, ultra-permeable reverse-selective membranes, proton exchange membranes, grouting materials, sensors and materials for metal uptake, etc. As for the colloidal polymer/sihca nanocomposites with various morphologies, they usually exhibit enhanced, even novel, properties when compared with the traditional nanocomposites and have many potential applications in various areas. 

Saha et al. [109] have proposed an improved ion deposition methodology based on a dual ion-beam assisted deposition (dual IBAD) method. Dual IBAD combines physical vapor deposition (PVD) with ion-beam bombardment. The unique feature of dual IBAD is that the ion bombardment can impart substantial energy to the coating and coating/substrate interface, which could be employed to control film properties such as uniformity, density, and morphology. Using the dual lABD method, an ultralow, pure Ft-based catalyst layer (0.04-0.12 mg Ft/cm ) can be prepared on the surface of a GDL substrate, with film thicknesses in the range of 250-750 A. The main drawback is that the fuel cell performance of such a CL is much lower than that of conventional ink-based catalyst layers. Further improvement... 

In this section, several PES studies on selected properties of PEDOT-PSS that are relevant to certain applications in organic electronics are reviewed. The unique initial-state binding energies of the sulfur atoms in the PEDOT and the PSS portions of the polymer blend make it possible to distinguish PEDOT from PSS within PEDOT-PSS films. We focus on the analysis of the elemental composition, the PEDOT-to-PSS ratio, some aspects of the granular morphology, and some additional chemical information (for example, an estimate of the doping level). 

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