Cryogenic 4D-STEM analysis of an amorphous-crystalline polymer blend: Combined nanocrystalline and amorphous phase mapping

Understanding and visualizing the heterogeneous structure of immiscible semicrystalline polymer systems is critical for optimizing their morphology and microstructure. We demonstrate a cryogenic 4D-STEM technique using a combination of amorphous radial profile mapping and correlative crystalline growth processing methods to map both the crystalline and amorphous phase distribution in an isotactic polypropylene (iPP)/ethylene-octene copolymer (EO) multilayer film with 5-nm step size. The resulting map shows a very sharp interface between the amorphous iPP and EO with no preferential crystalline structure near or at the interface, reinforcing the expected incompatibility and immiscibility of iPP and EO, which is a short-chain branched polyethylene. This technique provides a method for direct observation of interfacial structure in an unstained semicrystalline complex multicomponent system with a single cryogenic 4D-STEM dataset.