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Dynamics of interacting interphases in polymer bilayer thin films

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Abstract

We investigate how the local glass-transition temperature (T{ing}) depends on film thickness in monolayer and bilayer thin films with a polystyrene (PS) upper-layer and a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) lower-layer using coarse-grained simulations. Interactions between overlapping interphases demonstrate a superposition principle for describing their glass-transition behaviors. For supported bilayer films, the free surface effect on a PS film upper-layer is effectively eliminated due to an enhanced local T{ing} near the PS-PMMA interface, which cancels out depressed T{ing} near the free surface. However, at very low PMMA lower-layer thicknesses, the PMMA-substrate effect can penetrate through the polymer-polymer interface, leading to enhanced T{ing} in the PS upper-layer.

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Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge support by the Dow Chemical Company and from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. The authors acknowledge support by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) through the Center for Hierarchical Materials Design (CHiMaD). W.X. gratefully acknowledges the support from the NIST-CHiMaD Postdoctoral Fellowship. A supercomputing grant from Quest HPC System at Northwestern University is acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics & Engineering, Wheaton College, 501 College Avenue, Wheaton, IL, 60187, USA

    David D. Hsu

  2. Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, M/S 8550, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899, USA

    Wenjie Xia

  3. Center for Hierarchical Materials Design, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA

    Wenjie Xia

  4. Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 2145 Sheridan Road, 60208, USA

    Wenjie Xia

  5. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 02139, USA

    Jake Song

  6. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 2145 Sheridan Road, 60208, USA

    Sinan Keten

  7. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL, 60208-3109, USA

    Sinan Keten

Authors
  1. David D. Hsu
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  2. Wenjie Xia
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  3. Jake Song
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  4. Sinan Keten
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sinan Keten.

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Supplementary material

The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2017.113

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Hsu, D.D., Xia, W., Song, J. et al. Dynamics of interacting interphases in polymer bilayer thin films. MRS Communications 7, 832–839 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2017.113

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2017.113

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