Investigation of polymorphism for amorphous and semi-crystalline poly (-ethylene terephthalate-) using high-pressure Brillouin spectroscopy

High-pressure Brillouin spectroscopy was applied to clarify quantitatively the physical and mechanical differences of a polymer with distinct structures consisting of the same elements. The pressure dependences of elastic properties, Young’s modulus, the shear modulus, the bulk modulus, and Poisson’s ratio for an amorphous poly (-ethylene terephthalate-) [(-PET-)] and a semi-crystalline PET were compared for pressures up to 11 GPa. A collapse of the free volume for the two PETs was ascertained at the different values of the pressure with different slopes for the elastic properties, Young’s modulus, the shear modulus, and the bulk modulus. Although the Poisson’s ratios of a semi-crystalline PET increased linearly with increasing pressure, those of an amorphous PET were almost constant. The P-V equation of state (EOS) for an amorphous PET was also determined, and isothermal bulk moduli extracted from the Birch-Murnaghan and the Vinet EOSs were 6.3 ± 0.2 GPa and 6.7 ± 0.1 GPa, respectively.