Morphology of bulk crystalline polymers

There are perhaps two primary morphological entities encountered in the crystallization of high polymers; the single crystal, obtained in isolation by crystallization from dilute solution, and the spherulite, the typical form resulting from crystallization from the melt. The single crystal is important as an exemplar of polymeric crystalline order and as a building block of more complex morphologies. A spherulite is a polycrystalline aggregate whose component crystallites possess (in essence) the nature of single crystals; although often small and imperfectly developed in practical circumstances, it is the dominant morphological form in the "real" world of molded polymers.