Surfaces of Strongly Confined Polymer Thin Films Studied by X-Ray Scattering

Journal Article · Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1999 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.564· OSTI ID:355468

Wang, J ^[1]; Tolan, M ^[2]; Seeck, O H; Sinha, S K ^[1]; Bahr, O; Rafailovich, M H; Sokolov, J ^[3]

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1. Experimental Facilities Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439 (United States)
2. Institut fuer Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik der Universitaet Kiel, Leibnizstrasse 19, 24098 Kiel (Germany)
3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2275 (United States)

The surfaces of thermally annealed thin polystyrene films on silicon were investigated by specular and diffuse x-ray scattering. The data cannot be interpreted satisfactorily with capillary wave calculations assuming attractive van der Waals substrate film interactions. The analysis shows that polystyrene films coated on silicon substrates are in a strongly confined state even for film thicknesses much larger than the radius of gyration, possibly due to strong confinement that arises from the interaction at the polymer/substrate interface and the viscoelastic behavior of the thin films. {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society }

• DOE Contract Number: W-31-109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 355468
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 83, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1999
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
POLYMERS
THIN FILMS
X-RAY SPECTRA
INELASTIC SCATTERING
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
POLYSTYRENE
ANNEALING
THICKNESS
SILICON
INTERFACES