Electrical Relaxation in Pply(Ethylene Oxide)

Audio frequency complex admittance has been used to investigate electrical relaxation in poly(ethylene oxide). The complex admittance measurements were performed at seventeen frequencies from 10 Hz to 100 kHz in approximately equal logarithmic intervals using a fully automated dielectric spectrometer and measurements were performed in vacuum over the temperature range 5.5 to 350 K. Two relaxations are observed at low temperatures which are consistent with the literature. In order to gain new information concerning the ϒ relaxation, measurements were made at -94, -91, and -88 ° C at pressures up to 0.2 GPa. The shift in the peak frequency with pressure, and hence the activation volume, are found to be extremely small. This result combined with other work implies that the relaxation is associated with the motion of very small segments of the polymer chain.