With rare exception, a polymer is semi-crystalline, rather than crystalline, in that the result of crystallization is the formation of both crystalline and amorphous regions.
The above drawing may be compared to other artist's conceptions of the crystalline and amorphous domains in a semicrystalline polymer. Other representations have more polymer in the amorphous regions. The above represention is simplified, to place emphasis on the idea that crystallization stops as uncrystallized polymer length is stretched to the point that further chain movement is impaired.
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In a three dimensional polymer, this would mean "stretched out", not in a line, but in a random
path of "lines" as it bends around neighboring polymer chains, forming entanglements.
Crystallinity affects several polymer properties, including:
- Hardness
- Modulus
- Melting Point
