ABSTRACT
Spectroscopy, in all its forms, is a powerful tool for the study of structure. The spectrum of a material is a plot of the intensity of light transmitted through the sample, or absorbed by it, as a function of frequency or wavelength. Infrared spectroscopy can be applied to the characterization of polymeric materials at various levels of sophistication. Infrared absorption is simply described by classical electromagnetic theory: an oscillating dipole is an emitter or absorber of radiation. Infrared spectroscopy may also be employed to study the changes occurring upon chemical modification, degradation and oxidation of polymers. The effect of order or crystallinity on the infrared spectrum of a polymer is one of the most interesting, and at the same time, most generally misunderstood topics in polymer vibrational spectroscopy. Infrared spectroscopy is one of many techniques that have been applied to unravel the complexities of the interactions occurring in polymer mixtures.
