Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 10: INTERNAL SYMPOSIUM Scattering Experiments I

CPP 10.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 27, 2007, 09:30–10:00, H37

Polymer dynamics: From Synthetic Polymers to Biopolymers — •Dieter Richter — Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institut für Festkörperforschung, 52425 Jülich, Germany

In polymeric materials the structures, the macroscopic mechanical and rheological properties and the phase changes are determined to high degree by thermal motion of the atoms and molecules. Most of the relevant dynamics takes place on mesoscopic lengths and time scales in between the picosecond atomic scale and the macroscopic frame. Offering the proper space time observation window, neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy uniquely addresses these motions. We briefly present some key experimental results on the mesoscopic dynamics of polymer systems. We address briefly the standard model of polymer motion, the Rouse model, the role of topological confinement as expressed in the reptation model and finally, processes limiting the confinement * we discuss contour length fluctuations and constraint release of entangled chains. Very recently it became also possible to directly identify large scale internal dynamics of proteins by neutron spin echo. We report the results of these pioneering studies, which most likely will initiate further experiments on the large scale motions of proteins and their relation to the function.