| Abstract: | Radiation degradation is observed in poly(methyl α-chloroacrylate), poly(methyl α-cyanoacrylate), and poly(α-chloroacrylonitrile) homopolymers and their respective MMA copolymers when γ-irradiated in vacuo. Polymer degradation susceptibilities are quantified in terms of G(scission radicals) and G(scission) ? G(crosslinks), measured by EPR and membrane osmometry, respectively, values by these two methods are compared. Higher G(rads) values ranging from 2 to 6 and [G(s) ? G(x)] values ranging from 2 to 11 are obtained for the substituted polymers and copolymers relative to the values for PMMA (1.6; 1.9), a standard e-beam positive resist, which suggests that these modified polymers are more sensitive e-beam resists than PMMA. |
