Particle Dynamics in Polymer/Metal Nanocomposite Thin Films on Nanometer Length Scales

ORAL

Abstract

X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy was used in conjunction with resonance-enhanced grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering to probe the particle dynamics and kinetics in gold/polystyrene nanocomposite thin films. Such enhanced coherent scattering enables, for the first time, to measure the particle dynamics at wavevectors up to 1 \textit{nm}$^{-1}$ (or a few nm spatially), well in the regime where entanglement, confinement and particle interaction dominate the dynamics and kinetics. The dynamics at such length scales has been difficult, if not impossible to study, by any other probes. Measurements of the intermediate structure factor f(q,t) indicate a mechanism of particle motion very different from Brownian diffusion (governed by Stokes-Einstein equation). The measured dynamics is explained in terms of inter-particle and hydrodynamic interactions.

*This work and the use of Advanced Photon Source is supported by the US-DOE under contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38.

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Authors

  • Suresh Narayanan

    • Advanced Photon Source, Argonne, IL 60439
    • X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Lab, Argonne, IL 60439
    • Argonne National Laboratory
    • Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Lab
    • X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439
    • Argonne National Lab

  • Dong Ryeol Lee

    • Pohang Accelerator Laboratory

  • Aleta Hagman

    • Northwestern University \& Argonne National Lab
    • Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory

  • Xuefa Li

    • Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
    • Argonne National Lab
    • Advanced Photon Source
    • Argonne National Laboratory

  • Sunil Sinha

    • University of California, San Diego, CA 92093
    • Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA-92093, USA.
    • Dept. of Physics, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
    • Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego
    • University of California, San Diego
    • Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
    • University of California, San Diego and Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Jin Wang

    • aps/anl
    • Experimental Facilities Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439
    • Argonne National Lab
    • Argonne National Laboratory
    • Advanced Photon Source