ABSTRACT
Light microscopy is suitable for observations of crystal morphology, crystallization processes, and orientation in polymer materials, blends or block copolymers, multiphase structures of composites, thin films, and fibers. In crossed polarization microscopy, two polarizing sheets are vertically placed above and under the specimen stage of a light microscope and a specimen is placed between them. A phase contrast microscope maps subtle differences between the refractive indices of components onto contrast variations, allowing to distinguish various components and phases. Characteristic x-rays resulting from inner shell excitations are detected using energy dispersive spectrometry, which is used for qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy. TEM has an extremely high resolution, which implies that very small regions can be observed at a very large magnification. A TEM also has a very large depth of focus.
