High field pulse measurements of the electric anisotropy of polarizability and the electric dipole moment of poly-γ-benzyl-L-glutamate

High electric field pulse measurements have been made on dilute solutions of poly-γ-benzyl-L-glutamate (PBLG) in trans-1,2-dichlorethylene(I) and dioxan(II). One millisecond pulses of field amplitude up to 60 kV/cm have been used and the resulting changes in permittivity measured at 6 MHz. The measurements, which are analogous to Kerr effect birefringence work, yield values of the dipole moment and anisotropy of polarizability for PBLG. The values of the apparent dipole moment are 1930 D for (I) and 1410 D for (II), while the effective molecular anisotropy (α∥–α⊥) is 8.3 × 10–21cm3 for (I) and 10.5 × 10–21 cm3 for (II). Dispersion measurements on solution (I) led to a dipole moment of 1780 D.