Investigation of entanglement dynamics of flexible polymer chains via comparison of dielectric and viscoelastic properties: a review of recent findings

This review article summarizes results of recent viscoelastic and dielectric studies for entangled cis-polyisoprene (PI) chains. The PI chains have the so-called type-A dipoles parallel along the chain backbone, and their slow viscoelastic and dielectric relaxation processes reflect the same global chain motion. However, this motion is differently averaged in the viscoelastic and dielectric properties, the former representing the isochronal orientational anisotropy of individual entanglement segments while the latter detecting the orientational correlation of the segments at two separate times (0 and t). On the basis of this difference, the viscoelastic and dielectric data of the entangled PI chains were compared to elucidate detailed features of the chain dynamics. Specifically, the molecular picture of dynamic tube dilation (DTD) incorporated in recent models was tested for linear and star PI chain. The comparison revealed that the DTD picture was valid for linear PI chains but failed for the star PI chains in the dominant part of the terminal relaxation. The failure for the star chains was related to the pre-requisite for the DTD process, rapid equilibration of successive entanglement segments through their constraint release (CR) motion: For the star chains, the dilated tube diameter expected in the terminal regime was considerably large because of a broad distribution of motional modes of the chains, so that the CR-equilibration required for DTD could not occur in time. The terminal relaxation of the star chain appeared to occur through the CR process before the expected DTD process was completed. The situation was different for the linear chain exhibiting narrowly distributed motional modes. The dilated tube expected for the linear chain was rather thin and the required CR-equilibration occurred in time, resulting in the success of the DTD picture. These detailed features of the chain dynamics was revealed only when the viscoelastic and dielectric properties were compared, demonstrating the importance of this comparison.