Evidence for Capillary Waves on Dewetted Polymer Film Surfaces: A Combined X-ray and Atomic Force Microscopy Study

Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1998 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.2731· OSTI ID:659339

Tolan, M; Seeck, O H; Schlomka, J; Press, W ^[1]; Wang, J; Sinha, S K ^[2]; Li, Z; Rafailovich, M H; Sokolov, J ^[3]

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

Surfaces of thin dewetted polyethylene-propylene films were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and x-ray scattering. The AFM images show the mesoscopic island structure but do not give information about the microscopic roughness of the polymer surface. Together with the AFM data we were able to identify capillary waves on the island surfaces by their specific power laws in the diffuse x-ray scattering signal. The wave number spectrum of these waves is modified by a cutoff introduced by the vanthinspthinspderthinspthinspWaals substrate-film interactions. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society }

• DOE Contract Number: W-31-109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 659339
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 81, Issue 13; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1998
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
POLYMERS
FILMS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION
SURFACES
POLYETHYLENES
PROPYLENE
ROUGHNESS
MICROSCOPY
VAN DER WAALS FORCES