Wide‐angle neutron scattering studies of mixed crystals of polyethylene and deuteropolyethylene

Wide‐angle neutron scattering studies have been made of a series of mixed crystal blends of polyethylene and deuterated polyethylene in the range 0.68 ≤ K = 4πλ −1 sinθ ≤ 2.02 Å −1 . Recent calculations by Stamm have shown that regularly folded subunits of small numbers (two to ten) of stems should produce an observable modulation of the diffuse scattering pattern of such mixtures in this K range. For both melt‐ and solution‐crystallized blends, no extra signal was observed above the background scattering level. The data are used to place an upper limit (of about four) on the number of stems that could be regularly folded in the (100) and (010) planes for these materials.