It may help to name a view of these publications. But polymeric material tends to form semi-crystalline structures. But comparing the amorphous hollow with the crystal reflexes (WAXS/XRD) you gain information about the film. (Fig 8.2 in the link)

http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-540-69856-2

It may help to name a view of these publications. But polymeric material tends to form semi-crystalline structures. But comparing the amorphous hollow with the crystal reflexes (WAXS/XRD) you gain information about the film. (Fig 8.2 in the link)

http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-540-69856-2

Yes dear

Polymer is one type of the soft matter can easily deformed and not easy to crystalize . however, X-ray Diffraction used to recognize:

·         Different types of polymers phases (crystalline, semi-crystalline and amorphous)

·         Identification of polymers

·         Measuring crystallinity

the attachment is very interesting tutorial on" How to Analyze Polymers Using X-ray Diffraction" issued by the International Centre for Diffraction Data.

Please go through

Thank you

Thanks a lot sir for your kind help. 

For some particular polymers, the orientation of polymer chains could also be characted by 2D XRD.

If your polymer presents as semi-crystalline, you can determine the percentage of crystallinity by Hermans-Weidinger method. I determined that percentage in a recent article "crystallinity, morphology and high dielectric permittivity of NiO nanosheets filling Poly (vinylidene fluoride)".

XRD can also provide you the exact thickness of your film as compared to other method. large number of parameters of the polymers can be extracted from the XRD study. You can refer the attached paper

http://www.publicscienceframework.org/journal/paperInfo/ijmcp?paperId=1911

Using a very low incident angle (GIXS - grazing incident angle xray scattering) will ensure less penetration into the substrate and you can be sure you're getting information mostly about the thin polymer layer. 

We can get the degree of crystallinity   and   crystallite size  of polymer  from XRD analysis. 

Based on the overwhelming response, XRD (XRR, SAXS, WAXS, GIXRD) would appear to be the winner for characterizing polymers both thin films and bulk! XRD in general may be used to characterize various Nano structuctural periodicities in most materials, polymers or other, thin film or other.

Excellent references! Thanks to all contributors.

• The only temporary challenge compared with SEM/TEM/AFM would be the present lower spatial resolution of the data.
• The distinct advantage with XRD is the the ability to perform in situ NDE real time observations. Avoid destructive sample prep :-)
• 2D XRD signal also always contains "preferred orientation" information for polymeric materials. This significant information generally overlooked or neglected when acquiring the conventional linear equatorial scan diffractograms utilizing 0D proportional detectors.

Note: Before you pronounce this (or are tempted to) as "shameless self-promotion", have the gall to post any other references in literature (or not) of similar caliber by anyone else using