XE-129 NMR IN POLYMERS

Through the efforts of many researchers, 129Xe NMR has been shown to be a sensitive probe of phase morphology in polymers, providing a unique means of investigating the amorphous phase of bulk polymers. Recently developed models of the 129Xe chemical shift in polymers open the possibility of measuring van der Waals' interaction energies and chain dimensions from xenon spectra. In most cases, the information obtained from 129Xe NMR pertains only to the amorphous phase of the polymer, even in semicrystalline systems. The use of spin-polarized xenon has opened the possibility of probing the surface and near-surface regions of polymers.