An electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction study of the microstructures of melt-drawn polyethylene films

Electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction have been used to study microstructures of melt-drawn polyethylene films. During the drawing process, uniplanar structures are formed which consist of crystals with theirb andc axes in the film plane. On annealing the films, the crystal size and orientation increase. Quantitative measures of the crystal thickness, lateral crystallite size and long period were obtained from bright-field and dark-field electron micrographs as well as from wide and small angle X-ray diffraction of stacked layers of the films.