FTIR imaging of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and isotactic poly(propylene oxide) spherulites

FTIR spectroscopic imaging is combined with linear dichroism measurements to investigate the structures of spherulites of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and isotactic poly(propylene oxide). It is shown that this technique can be used to easily gain qualitative information about relative orientations of chemical bonds within a solid polymeric sample. Furthermore the imaging technique is shown to have the considerable advantage that the obtained images are easy to understand and easy to interpret even without deep knowledge of FTIR linear dichroism measurements.