The Effect of Orientation Relaxation on Polymer Melt Crystallization Studied by Monte Carlo Simulations

We use dynamic Monte Carlo simulations to study the athermal relaxation of bulk extended chains and the isothermal crystallization in intermediately relaxed melts. It is found that the memory of chain orientations in the melt can significantly enhance the crystallization rates. The crystal orientation and lamellar thickness essentially depend on the orientational relaxation. Moreover, there is a transition of the nucleation mechanism during the isothermal crystallization from the intermediately relaxed melts. These results explain the mechanism of the self-nucleation by orientation and suggest that in flow-induced polymer crystallization, the orientational relaxation of chains decides the crystal orientation.