TY - CONF A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Omar, Hassan A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Hertwik, Andreas A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Investigation of the behavior of thin polymeric films including the adsorbed layer on the substrate by nano-sized relaxation spectroscopy and complementary methods N2 - Thin polymeric films are of great importance of high number of high-tech applications for instance in sensors and nanoelectronics. Form the scientific point of view thin films with thickness below 100 nm are ideal model systems to study confinement effects on its properties for instance on the molecular relaxation processes. In this contribution an overview is presented about the behavior of different systems as investigated by nanosized relaxation spectroscopy like broadband dielectric spectroscopy employing nano structured capacitors and AC chip calorimetry complimented by ellipsometry. The systems considered are PVME1, PVME/PS blends2,3 P2VP4, PBAC5 and polysulfone6. Besides the film also the adsorbed layer on the substrate prepared by a leaching approach and investigated by AFM is considered.1,4-7. For these investigationsss it is found that the adsorbed layer itself exhibits a relaxation dynamics which might be assigned either to molecular motions or to adsorptions desorption kinetics. T2 - 9. International Discussion Meeting Relaxation Complex Systems CY - Chiba, Japan DA - 12.08.2023 KW - Thin polymer films PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58103 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Gawek, Marcel T1 - Growth Kinetics and Molecular Mobility of Irreversibly Adsorbed Layers in Thin Polymer Films N2 - In well-annealed thin polymer films, with non-repulsive polymer/substrate interactions, an irreversibly adsorbed layer is expected to form. These adsorbed layers have shown great potential for technological applications. However, their growth kinetics and molecular dynamics are still not fully understood. This is partially due to the hard accessibility of these layers in thin films. Here, the irreversibly adsorbed layers of homopolymer thin films are revealed by solvent-leaching experiments. First, the growth kinetics of these layers is investigated as a function of annealing times and original film thickness. The thickness, topography and quality of the adsorbed layer is controlled with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Secondly, the molecular mobility of the adsorbed layer is investigated with Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS). A recently developed nanostructured capacitor is employed to measure the adsorbed layers with a free surface layer. The results are quantitatively compared and discussed with respect to recently published work. T2 - Meeting of the American Physical Society CY - Los Angeles, CA, USA DA - 05.03.2018 KW - Thin polymeric films KW - Adsorbed layer PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44488 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Gawek, Marcel T1 - Growth Kinetics and Molecular Mobility of Irreversibly Adsorbed Layers in Thin Polymer Films N2 - In well-annealed thin polymer films, with non-repulsive polymer/substrate interactions, an irreversibly adsorbed layer is expected to form. These adsorbed layers have shown great potential for technological applications. However, their growth kinetics and molecular dynamics are still not fully understood. This is partially due to the hard accessibility of these layers in thin films. Here, the irreversibly adsorbed layers of homopolymer thin films are revealed by solvent-leaching experiments. First, the growth kinetics of these layers is investigated as a function of annealing times and original film thickness. The thickness, topography and quality of the adsorbed layer is controlled with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Secondly, the molecular mobility of the adsorbed layer is investigated with Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS). A recently developed nanostructured capacitor is employed to measure the adsorbed layers with a free surface layer. The results are quantitatively compared and discussed with respect to recently published work. T2 - Spring Meeting of German Physical Society CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 12.03.2018 KW - Thin polymeric films KW - Dielectric spectroscopy PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44489 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Madkour, Sherif A. A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Penner, P. A1 - Paneff, F. A1 - Zhang, X. A1 - Gölzhäuser, A. A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Can Polymers be Irreversibly Adsorbed on Carbon Nanomembranes? A Combined XPS, AFM, and Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy Study N2 - Carbon nanomembranes are synthetic two-dimensional sheets with nanometer thickness, macroscopic lateral dimensions, and high structural homogeneity. They have great application potential in various branches of nanotechnology. Because of their full carbon structure, it is not clear whether macromolecules like poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) can be irreversibly adsorbed on their surface. Here, irreversible adsorption means that the polymer chains cannot be removed by a leaching process, which is assumed in technological transfer processes. However, if polar defects are present on the carbon nanomembranes (CNMs), it may occur that polymers can be irreversibly adsorbed. To address this question, PMMA was spin-coated on top of CNMs, annealed for a specific time at different temperatures, and then tried to be removed by a acetone treatment in a leaching approach. The samples were investigated in detail by atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and broadband dielectric spectroscopy, where the latter method has been applied to CNMs for the first time. Unambiguously, it was shown that PMMA can be adsorbed on the surface of CNMs after annealing the sample above the glasstransition temperature of PMMA. The general occurrence of polar defects on the surface of CNMs and the adsorption of polymers open opportunities for advanced innovative hybrid materials combining the properties of the CNM with those of the polymer. KW - Carbon Nanomembranes KW - Irreversible adsorption KW - Broadband dielectric spectroscopy KW - XPS spctroscopy KW - Atomic force microscopy PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.2c01320 SN - 2637-6105 VL - 4 IS - 11 SP - 8377 EP - 8385 PB - ACS AN - OPUS4-56067 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pleskunov, P. A1 - Nikitin, D. A1 - Tafiichuk, R. A1 - Shlemin, A. A1 - Hanus, J. A1 - Kousal, J. A1 - Krtous, Z. A1 - Khalakhan, I. A1 - Kus, P. A1 - Nasu, T. A1 - Nagahama, T. A1 - Funaki, C. A1 - Sato, H. A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Schönhals, Andreas A1 - Choukourov, A. T1 - Plasma polymerization of acrylic acid for the tunable synthesis of glassy abd carboxylated nanoparticle N2 - Polymer nanoparticles (NPs) can be highly attractive in numerous applications including biomedicine where the use of inorganic matter may be detrimental for living tissues. In conventional wet chemistry, polymerization and functionalization of NPs with specific chemical groups involves complex and often numerous reactions. Here, we report on a solvent-free, single-step, low temperature plasma-based synthesis of carboxylated NPs produced by polymerization of acrylic acid under the conditions of a glow discharge. In a monomer-deficient regime, strong fragmentation of the monomer molecules by electron impact results in the formation of 15 nm-sized NPs with <1% retention of the carboxyl groups. In an energy-deficient regime, larger 90 nm-sized NPs are formed with better retention of the carboxyls that reaches 16 %. All types of the NPs exhibit the glass transition above the room temperature which makes them highly stable under aqueous environment with no dissolution or swelling. They are also found to degrade thermally when heated above 150 °C with a decrease of the mean NP size, yet with the retention of the chemical composition. Thus, plasma polymerization proves to be a versatile approach for the production of polymer NPs with tuneable size distribution, chemical composition and physical properties. KW - Nanoparticles PY - 2020 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b08960 VL - 124 SP - 668 EP - 678 PB - ACS AN - OPUS4-50351 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Hülagü, Deniz A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Molecular Mobility of Thin Films and the Adsorbed Layer of Poly(2-vinylpyridine) N2 - The molecular dynamics of thin films and the adsorbed layer of poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) were investigated using broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Thin films of P2VP were prepared on silicon substrates and characterized to understand the influence of film thickness on the thermal glass transition temperature (Tg) and molecular mobility. The ellipsometric study revealed a decrease in Tg with decreasing film thickness, attributed to the enhanced mobility at the polymer/air interface. The adsorbed layer, prepared via the solvent leaching approach, exhibited a higher Tg compared to the bulk, indicating reduced molecular mobility due to strong polymer substrate interactions. The dielectric measurements were carried out in two different electrode configurations, crossed electrode capacitors (CEC) and nanostructured electrodes (NSE), where the latter allows for a free surface layer at the polymer/air interface. The relaxation rates of the α-relaxation measured in the CEC geometry collapse into one chart independent from the film thickness. For the thin films measured in the NSE arrangement the relaxation rates slow down with decreasing film thickness which was discussed as related to a stronger interaction of the P2VP segments with the native SiO2 at the surface of the silicon substrate compared to aluminum. It is worth to note that the effect of the enhanced mobility at the polymer/air interface is not observed in the dielectric measurements. BDS measurements in NSE geometry identified an additional relaxation process (α*-relaxation) in thin films, which was more pronounced in the adsorbed layer. This process is hypothesized to be related to molecular fluctuations within the adsorbed layer including the adsorption/desorption dynamics of segments or to a Slow Arrhenius Process (SAP) related to the equilibration dynamics deep in the glassy state. KW - Thin polymer films PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-637181 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d5sm00539f SN - 1744-6848 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) AN - OPUS4-63718 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Gawek, Marcel T1 - Growth Kinetics and Molecular Mobility of Irreversibly Adsorbed Layers in Thin Films of P2VP and PVME N2 - In well-annealed thin polymer films, with non-repulsive polymer/substrate interactions, an irreversibly adsorbed layer is formed. These adsorbed layers have shown enormous potential for technological applications. Due to the hard accessibility of these layers, their growth kinetics and molecular dynamics are still not fully understood. Here, the irreversibly adsorbed layers of Poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) and Poly(vinyl methyl ether) (PVME) thin films are revealed by solvent-leaching experiments. The growth kinetics of these layers is investigated as a function of original film thickness and annealing times. The thickness, topography and quality of the adsorbed layer is determined with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Additionally, the molecular mobility of the adsorbed layer is investigated with Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS). A recently developed nanostructured capacitor (NSC) is employed to measure the adsorbed layers with a free surface layer depending on annealing and solvent-leaching time. The results are quantitatively compared and discussed with respect to recently published work. T2 - Spring Meeting of German Physical Society CY - Regensburg, Germany DA - 31.03.2019 KW - Adsorbed layer KW - Thin polymeric films PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-47766 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Gawek, Marcel T1 - Growth Kinetics and Molecular Mobility of Irreversibly Adsorbed Layers in Thin Polymer Films N2 - In well-annealed thin polymer films, with non-repulsive polymer/substrate interactions, an irreversibly adsorbed layer is formed. These adsorbed layers have shown enormous potential for technological applications. The growth kinetics and molecular dynamics of these buried layers in thin films are still not fully investigated due to the hard accessibility. Here, the irreversibly adsorbed layers of homopolymer thin films are revealed by solvent-leaching experiments. The growth kinetics of these layers is investigated as a function of original film thickness and annealing times. The thickness, topography and quality of the adsorbed layer is determined with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Additionally, the molecular mobility of the adsorbed layer is investigated with Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS). A recently developed nanostructured capacitor (NSC) is employed to measure the adsorbed layers with a free surface layer depending on annealing and solvent-leaching time. The results are quantitatively compared and discussed with respect to recently published work. T2 - Spring Meeting of German Physical Society CY - Regensburg, Germany DA - 31.03.2019 KW - Adsorbed layer KW - Thin polymeric films PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-47767 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Radnik, Jörg A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Energy Dependent XPS Measurements on Thin Films of a Poly(vinyl methyl ether)/Polystyrene Blend in Dependence on Film Thickness – Concentration Profile on a Nanometer Resolution to Understand the Behavior of Nanofilms N2 - The composition of the surface layer in dependence from the distance of the polymer/air interface in thin films with thicknesses below 100 nm of miscible polymer blends in a spatial region of a few nanometers is not investigated completely. Here, thin films of the blend poly vinyl methyl ether) (PVME)/polystyrene (PS) with a composition of 25/75 wt% are investigated by Energy Resolved X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (ER-XPS) at a synchrotron storage ring using excitation energies lower than 1 keV. By changing the energy of the photons the information depth is varied in the range from ca. 1 nm to 10 nm. Therefore, the PVME concentration could be estimated in dependence from the distance of the polymer/air interface for film thicknesses below 100 nm. Firstly, as expected for increasing information depth the PVME concentration decreases. Secondly, it was found that the PVME concentration at the surface has a complicated dependence on the film thickness. It increases with decreasing film thickness until 30 nm where a maximum is reached. For smaller film thicknesses the PVME concentration decreases. A simplified layer model is used to calculate the effective PVME concentration in the different spatial regions of the surface layer. KW - Energy dependent XPS KW - Soft X-ray KW - Thin films PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d1sm00656h VL - 17 IS - 29 SP - 6985 EP - 6994 PB - The Royal Chemical Society AN - OPUS4-53039 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Madkour, S. A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Confinement and localization effects revealed for thin films of the miscible blend Poly(vinyl methyl ether) / Polystyrene with a composition of 25/75 wt% N2 - Thin films (200-7nm) of the asymmetric polymer blend poly(vinyl methyl ether) (PVME)/polystyrene (PS) (25/75wt%) were investigated by broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS). Thicker samples ([Formula: see text]37 nm) were measured by crossed electrode capacitors (CEC), where the film is capped between Al-electrodes. For thinner films ([Formula: see text]37 nm) nanostructured capacitors (NSC) were employed, allowing one free surface in the film. The dielectric spectra of the thick films showed three relaxation processes ( [Formula: see text] -, [Formula: see text] - and [Formula: see text] -relaxation), like the bulk, related to PVME fluctuations in local spatial regions with different PS concentrations. The thickness dependence of the [Formula: see text] -process for films measured by CECs proved a spatially heterogeneous structure across the film with a PS-adsorption at the Al-electrodes. On the contrary, for the films measured by NSCs a PVME segregation at the free surface was found, resulting in faster dynamics, compared to the CECs. Moreover, for the thinnest films ([Formula: see text]26 nm) an additional relaxation process was detected. It was assigned to restricted fluctuations of PVME segments within the loosely bounded part of the adsorbed layer, proving that for NSCs a PVME enrichment takes place also at the polymer/substrate interface. KW - Thin polymer films KW - Broadband dielectric spectroscopy PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2019-11870-3 SN - 1292-895X VL - 42 IS - 8 SP - 101, 1 EP - 11 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-48651 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Omar, Hassan A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer of poly(2-vinylpyridine) - An indirect observation of desorption of polymers from substrates N2 - The growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer of poly(2-vinylpiridine) on silicon oxide is studied using a leaching technique which is based on the Guiselin brushes approach. The adsorbed layer is grown from a 200 nm thick P2VP film for several annealing time periods at different annealing temperatures. Then the film is solvent-leached, and the height of the remaining adsorbed layer is measured by atomic force microscopy. At the lowest annealing temperature only a linear growth regime is observed, followed by a plateau. Here, the molecular mobility of segments is too low to allow for a logarithmic growth. At higher annealing temperatures, both linear and logarithmic growth regimes are observed, followed by a plateau. At even higher annealing temperatures, the growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer changes. A linear growth followed by logarithmic growth kinetics is observed for short annealing time periods. For longer annealing time periods, an upturn of the growth kinetics is observed. At the highest annealing temperature, only a logarithmic growth regime is found. The change in the growth kinetics is discussed by an alteration in the structure of the adsorbed layer. Moreover, the interaction between the polymer segments and the substrate becomes weaker due to both enthalpic and entropic effects. Therefore, at high annealing temperatures the polymer segments might more easily desorb from the substrate. KW - Ultra thin polymer films PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-575423 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d3sm00129f SN - 1744-683X SN - 1744-6848 VL - 19 IS - 21 SP - 3975 EP - 3982 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) CY - London AN - OPUS4-57542 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -