Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: For ultrasonically induced birefringence in polymer solutions, both the linear sinusoidal birefringence and the nonlinear stationary birefringence were observed. The sign and value of the stationary ultrasonically induced birefringence depended on the molecular structure of segment and its anisotropy in polarizability. Furthermore, no molecular weight dependence could be observed above the molecular weight 10⁴. The theory based on the viscoelastic ones using the Rouse-Zimm model could not explain our experimental results as a whole. These results strongly suggest that the stationary ultrasonically induced birefringence should be caused by the local segmental motion of polymer chain in solution. For all polymer solutions investigated here, the stationary birefringence per ultrasonic intensity decreased with increasing frequency. This frequency dependence is not consistent with the present treatment for the ultrasonically induced birefringence.