New evolution in crystal structure analysis of synthetic polymers on the basis of concerted analysis of X-ray and neutron diffraction data

In general, the X-ray crystal structure analysis of synthetic polymers cannot necessarily lead us to the satisfactorily correct answer because of the low quality of the diffraction data due to the small crystallite size, making the discussion of the structure-property relationship quite ambiguous. The harmonic combination of X-ray and neutron diffraction data analyses increases the reliability of the derived crystal structures. The actual examples are introduced about the crystal structures of atactic-poly (vinyl alcohol) and its iodine complex to demonstrate the powerfulness of the idea of coupling the different types of diffraction data. (author)