On Polymer Nanocomposites - Progress in Organic and Physical Chemistry: Structures and Mechanisms - page 231

The peaks of crystal silicon are well distinguishable on diffractograms of ¿ lms
with silicon (the reference positions with Miller's corresponding indexes are pointed).
Heights of the peaks of silicon with the same name (i.e. peaks with identical indexes)
on diffractograms of the composite ¿ lms PE + 0.5% nc-Si-97 and PE + 1.0% nc-Si-36
differ approximately twice that corresponds to a parity of mass concentration Si set at
their manufacturing.
Degree of crystallinity of polymer ¿ lms (a volume fraction of the crystal ordered
areas in a material) in this research was de¿ ned by diffractograms Figure 3 for a series
of samples only semi-quantitative (more/less). The essence of the method of crystal-
linity de¿ nition consists in analytical division of a diffractogram pro¿ le on the Bragg
peaks from crystal areas and diffusion peak of an amorphous phase [20], as is shown
in Figure 4.

12000.0

10000.0

PE- 1

8000.0

6000.0

Amorphous PE

4000.0

PE- 2

2000.0

Si (111)

PE- 3

12.0 16.0 20.0 24.0 28.0 32.0 36.0

Scattering angel 2 θ degree

FIGURE 4 Diffractogram decomposition on separate peaks and a background by means of
approximation of a full profile by analytical functions on an example of the data from sample
PE+1% nc-Si-36 (Figure 3). PE-n designate Bragg peaks of crystal polyethylene with serial
numbers n from left to right. Si (111)-Bragg silicon peak nc-Si-36. Vertical strokes specify
positions of maxima of peaks.

Peaks pro¿ les of including peak of an amorphous phase, were approximated by
function pseudo Voigt, a background four order polynoms of Chebysheva. The non-
linear method of the least squares minimized a difference between intensity of points
experimental and approximating curves. The width and height of approximating func-
tions, positions of their maxima, and the integrated areas, and also background param-
eters were thus speci¿ ed. The relation of integrated intensity of a scattering pro¿ le by
an amorphous phase to fully integrated intensity of scattering by all phases except for