N.m.r. study of the ferroelectric phase transition in a 70/30 mol% copolymer of vinylidene fluoride (VF2) and trifluoroethylene (TrFE)

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (n.m.r.) studies of 19F nuclei in a 70/30 mol% random copolymer of vinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene were performed at 9.14 MHz and 20.0 MHz. The free induction decays (FIDs) were analysed in terms of two T2 components attributed to the amorphous and crystalline portions of the polymer. The changes in crystallinity as well as the effects of the ferroelectric transition were observed during cycles of heating and cooling between 20°C and 140°C. The crystalline component of the FID lengthens by a factor of 2 at 100°C on heating and decreases by this factor at 60°C on cooling, thus exhibiting the thermal hysteresis of this ferroelectric transition. The spin-lattice relaxation was also investigated. From measurements at 9.14 MHz the observed longitudinal relaxation time T1 appears to be dominated by the dynamics of the amorphous phase and exhibits no anomaly through the phase transition. However, from measurements at 20 MHz, well defined minima of T1 were observed, which are associated with the ferroelectric transition (especially after repeated annealing of the samples). Results are discussed in terms of the crystalline phase structure, which appears dynamically disordered above the ferroelectric phase transition. An analogy is considered with the plastic phase transitions encountered in molecular crystals.