Macromolecules, Vol.44, No.20, 8324-8332, 2011
Cooperative Dynamics in Polystyrene and Low-Mass Molecule Mixtures
We conducted dielectric and viscoelastic relaxation measurements for polystyrene (PS)/4-pentyl-4'-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) and PS/4-penty1-4"-cyanoterphenyl (5CT) mixtures in the miscible state with the weight fractions of 5CB or 5CT from 0.04 to 0.27 to examine the relationship between two-component dynamics in the mixture. Dielectric relaxation measurements mainly probed the dynamics of low-mass molecule (LM), 5CB or 5CT, because of the much larger dipole moment of LMs compared to that of PS. PS/5CB mixtures exhibited bimodal dielectric relaxation, while PS/5CT showed unimodal relaxation. The observed two relaxation modes (slow and fast modes) in PS/5CB were attributed to the full rotational motion and partial rotational motion of 5CB,