Nano-architectures of flattened polymer chains at solid-polymer melt interface
POSTER
Abstract
Our group has recently revealed that, by using x-ray/neutron reflectivity, irreversibly adsorbed polystyrene (PS) layers onto planar silicon substrates are composed of the two different nano-architectures: flattened chains that constitute the inner higher density region of the adsorbed layers and loosely adsorbed polymer chains that form the outer bulk-like density region. Here, we focus on the following two effects on the formation of the flattened layer: (i) intramolecular architectures and (ii) polymer/substrate interactions. Various surface sensitive techniques including in-situ x-ray/neutron reflectivity, grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscope were utilized to illuminate the inherent chain architectures at the solid/polymer interface.
*Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the financial support from NSF Grant No. CMMI-084626.