Non-monotonic Information and Shape Evolution of Polymers Enabled by Spatially Programmed Crystallization and Melting.

Stimuli-responsive polymer materials are a kind of intelligent material which can sense and respond to external stimuli. However, most current stimuli-responsive polymers only exhibit a monotonic response to a single constant stimulus but cannot achieve dynamic evolution. Herein, we report a method to achieve a non-monotonic response under a single stimulus by regionalizing the crystallization and melting kinetics in semicrystalline polymers.

Defect Crystal Formation and Thermal-Induced Structural Ordering of Semicrystalline Copolymers Induced by Comonomer Inclusion/Exclusion.

Comonomer defects can induce semicrystalline polymers to form unique crystalline structures (., defect crystals), which can greatly influence the materials' physical properties. However, the formation mechanism and structural evolution of defect polymer crystals are not yet well understood.