Application of new treatment methods for "reading" of the complex capacitance: A quantitative description of the aging phenomenon in polymer glasses

Abstract

The glassy dynamics have been investigated using electric capacitance measurements for thin films of poly(2-chlorostyrene). The observed relaxation behavior of the electric capacitance has been analyzed using a new smoothing procedure for the noisy curves and the eigen-coordinates method for the fitting trends obtained in the results of the smoothing procedure. Such analysis has given us a fascinating relaxation function related to the glassy dynamics. New aging curve will give us a chance to understand a proper physical mechanism (related to a possible formation of dynamical self-similar interacting clusters) that can describe this interesting phenomenon. Physical consequences for the recognized relaxation function are discussed. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.