Chain Conformation near the Buried Interface in Nanoparticle-Stabilized Polymer Thin Films

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.7b01187
• Publication Date: 2017-09-26T18:24:57Z
• Authors: Deborah A. Barkley; Naisheng Jiang; Mani Sen; Maya K. Endoh; Jonathan G. Rudick; Tadanori Koga; Yugang Zhang; Oleg Gang; Guangcui Yuan; Sushil K. Satija; Daisuke Kawaguchi; Keiji Tanaka; Alamgir Karim
• Keywords: Dewetting

It is known that when nanoparticles are added to polymer thin films, they often migrate the film–substrate interface and form an "immobile interfacial layer", which believed be mechanism behind dewetting suppression. We here report a new of suppression from structural aspect chains accommodated at interface. Dodecanethiol-functionalized gold (Au) embedded in relatively low molecular weight PS films prepared on silicon (Si) substrates were used as model. mimicked previously reported conditions, where preferentially substrate, successfully stabilized via thermal annealing. A suite surface-sensitive techniques including atomic force microscopy, grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering, X-ray/neutron reflectivity, sum frequency generation spectroscopy conjunction with established solvent leaching process enabled us unveil chain conformation dispersion structure The results evidenced annealing promotes irreversible adsorption onto substrate surface along migration nanoparticles. In addition, we found causes changes conformations orientations adsorbed compared those formed nanoparticle-free film. resultant allows for interpenetration between free chains, thereby stabilizing