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Full-Text Articles in Condensed Matter Physics
Structure And Strength: Anisotropic Polyvinyl Alcohol Hydrogels And Spider Mite Silk Fibres, Stephen Hudson
Structure And Strength: Anisotropic Polyvinyl Alcohol Hydrogels And Spider Mite Silk Fibres, Stephen Hudson
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a hydrophilic, biocompatible polymer which can be made into physically cross-linked hydrogels by freezing and thawing PVA solution. These hydrogels can be made with anisotropic mechanical properties closely matching those of porcine aorta, making them a promising material for producing artificial heart valves and heart valve stents.
Small- and ultra small-angle neutron scattering has been used to study the structure of isotropic and anisotropic PVA hydrogels at length-scales of 2 nm to 10 μm. By supplementing the neutron data with data from atomic force microscopy, a large range of length-scales have been probed, within which structural …
Electron Irradiation Effects On Ferroelectric Copolymer Langmuir-Blodgett Films, Christina M. Othon, Stephen Ducharme
Electron Irradiation Effects On Ferroelectric Copolymer Langmuir-Blodgett Films, Christina M. Othon, Stephen Ducharme
Christina M Othon
The effect of irradiation on the ferroelectric properties of Langmuir-Blodgett films of the copolymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluorethelene) is investigating using 1.26 MeV electrons with dosages from 16 to 110 Mrad. Irradiation causes a systematic decrease in the phase transition temperature, coercive field and polarization of these thin films.