Title: Enhanced resistance to decay of imprinted nanopatterns in thin films by bare nanoparticles compared to polymer-grafted nanoparticles

Abstract

We extend a previous study on the influence of nanoparticles on the decay of nanoimprinted polymer film patterns to compare the effects of “bare” silica (SiO₂) nanoparticles and SiO₂ nanoparticles with grafted polymer layers having the same chemical composition as the polymer matrix. This method involves nanoimprinting substrate-supported polymer films using a pattern replicated from a digital versatile disc (DVD), and then annealing the patterned polymer nanocomposite films at elevated temperatures to follow the decay of the topographic surface pattern with time by atomic force microscopy imaging after quenching. We quantified the relaxation of the pattern height (“slumping”) and determined the relaxation time τ for this pattern decay process as a function of nanoparticle filler type and concentration to determine how nanoparticle additives influence relative film stability. Attractive interactions between the bare nanoparticles and the polymer matrix significantly enhance the thermal resilience of the nanopatterns to decay, compared to those of the particle brushes, wherein the particle core interactions are screened from the matrix via the brush layer. A novel aspect of this method is that it readily lends itself to in situ film relaxation measurements in a manufacturing context. We observe that the relaxation time of the pattern relaxationmore » exhibits entropy–enthalpy compensation in the free energy parameters governing the pattern relaxation process as a function of temperature, irrespective of the NP system used, consistent with our previous experimental and computational studies.« less

Authors:

Bhadauriya, Sonal  ^[1];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-2598-0848"

Nallapaneni, Asritha ^[1]; Wang, Xiaoteng  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Wang, Xiaoteng"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-2095-8764"

Zhang, Jianan  ^[2];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-3195-9882"

Masud, Ali  ^[3];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-7619-4364"

Bockstaller, Michael R.  ^[2];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-9046-9539"

Al-Enizi, Abdullah M.  ^[4];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-3967-5553"

Stafford, Christopher M.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-9362-8707"

Douglas, Jack F.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-7290-2300"

Karim, Alamgir  ^[3]

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-1302-9374"

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, USA
2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA
3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
4. Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
5. Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA

Publication Date:

Tue Sep 14 00:00:00 EDT 2021

Research Org.:

Univ. of Houston, TX (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); King Saud University

OSTI Identifier:

1813489

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1852693

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0018854; RSP-2021/55

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

Nanoscale Advances

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Nanoscale Advances Journal Volume: 3 Journal Issue: 18; Journal ID: ISSN 2516-0230

Publisher:

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

Country of Publication:

United Kingdom

Language:

English

Subject:

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE