Welcome to Inoue Lab. 
Address:
Department of Macromolecular Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University,
Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan
Phone/Fax : +81-6-6850-5464 E-Mail: 
Research Area
Polymer molecules consist of many repeat units linked with covalent bonds. In solution or melt, they have a structure like an irregularly entangled thread. Such a structure (conformation) is called "random coil". In our laboratory, we study the molecular motions of random coils by means of various experimental methods.
The rate of rotation of the repeat unit is much higher than the rate of overall rotation of the whole chain. The ratio of the relaxation times for overall rotation and the local motion is of the order of 10 to the power 15 for a chain with high molecular weight! Between these two extremes there exist various modes of molecular motions. Furthermore with decreasing temperature, the motions of those modes slow down and evantually frozen-in around the glass transition temperature.
In an effort to observe those molecular motions, we mainly use the techniques of dielectric relaxation, forced Rayleigh scattering, ultrasonic absorption, and rheology. We will also use NMR, dynamic light scattering and neutron scattering if necessary. The mobility of the chains are governed by intermolecular interactions. To get information of the thermodynamic properties, we also use an adiabatic calorimeter.
Here are menbers of Inoue lab.
Apparatuses available in our laboratory
Apparatuses for Dielectric measurements
Rheometer (Iwamoto IR-200 Steady state viscosity and dynamic shear moduli)
Apparatus for Observation of Drop Deformation in Electric Field (Home made)
GPC (Tosoh: Equipped with small angle light scattering detector)
Our laboratory has a room to accomodate a few graduate students of the master and doctor course. If you want to study in our laboratory, please contact to Prof. Inoue.