Optical Techniques to Characterize Polymer Systems

To optimize the properties of polymers or to design new polymeric materials for special applications, one has to understand how their properties depend on chemical and physical structure. This, in turn, requires methods for material characterization operating on a microscopic level such as optical techniques. Over the past decades major progress has been made in exploiting the analytical power offered by spectroscopic methods if combined with modern light source and detection technology. This multi-author book has been written in order to acquaint a broader audience with these recent achievements. Its individual chapters have been arranged in three groups featuring absorption, luminescence and diffraction techniques including non-linear optics for probing the physical structure of polymers, as well as their dynamic behavior in the presence and absence of electronic excitation. Emphasis has been placed on recent developments in the spectroscopy of solid polymers.