TY - CONF A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Rosu, Dana A1 - Ortel, Erik A1 - Kraehnert, R. A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan T1 - Measurement of Porous TiO2 Layers with spectroscopic ellipsometry – a multi-method study N2 - By means of an effective medium (EMA) based approach, it is possible to use spectroscopic ellipsometry to determine the mixing ratios between air and material in porous dielectrics and calculate a quantitative value of the porosity for these materials. As this method is model-based, it is very difficult to provide a quantitative measure for the accuracy of porosity values determined by this method. Valuable additional information can often be obtained by combining ellipsometry with other complementary methods. In the present study, the ellipsometry results were validated by Electron Probe Microanalysis (EPMA) with the option of layer analysis (by the socalled “STRATAGem” approach), gravimetry, and electron microscopy. We analysed porous TiO2 thin layers synthesised by means of a template synthesis approach (evaporation induced self assembly). Ellipsometry measurements on porous samples are difficult to analyse due to the complexity of the models necessary. Often it is difficult to decide if the measured data contains enough information to successfully determine the target quantities (mixing ratio, dielectric function of the matrix material). One method to decrease the complexity of the fit and therefore use the measurement data most efficiently is a multi-sample analysis. In the present case, multi-sample analysis was used for determining the porosity factors of the individual layers while using one common set of dielectric function values for the matrix in all cases. While the results of the fit analysis in this case can be used to show the feasibility and also the limitations of the multi-method approach, the porosity values themselves show a promising agreement between the independent methods. It can therefore be concluded that determining porosity values with ellipsometry is in accordance to other methods to the level of accuracy provided by the complementary methodologies. T2 - International conference on spectroscopic ellipsometry (ICSE-7) CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 06.06.2016 KW - Spectroscopic Ellipsometry KW - Electron Microscopy KW - Multi-method Metrology KW - Porous Materials KW - Thin Films KW - Titanium Dioxide PY - 2016 AN - OPUS4-37202 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Omar, Hassan A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Determining thermal transitions in thin polymer layers by means of spectroscopic ellipsometry N2 - Thin polymer layers have enormous technical significance as polymer coatings on materials are very cost-effective for tailoring properties of surfaces. Apart from technical aspects in their use, thin polymer layers can be used to determine dimensional aspects in properties of material, such as confinement effects. In this work, we investigated several different polymer layer materials and determined their glass transition region by means of temperature-dependent spectroscopic ellipsometry. We have optimised our fitting procedure of the ellipsometric data produced in temperature ramp experiments. By this, we could measure the dependence of Tg on the layer thickness in a wide variety of thickness values, proving the existence of confinement effects in the investigated systems. We compare numerical methods for determining the location of the glass transition and discuss the possibilities of different analysis methods when determining thermal transitions. We also discuss the simultaneous existence of these transitions and annealing effects and the implications on the accuracy of the determined data. T2 - 12th Workshop Ellipsometry 2023 CY - Prague, Czech Republic DA - 18.09.2023 KW - Thin Films KW - Polymers KW - Ellipsometry KW - Themal Transitions PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58413 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Omar, Hassan A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Investigations of Ultrathin Polymer Films Supported on Inorganic Substrates N2 - Interactions between a polymer and a substrate interface play a vital role in understanding the improvement in thin film material properties as well as serving as a model for nanocomposites. For any non-repulsive polymer-substrate interactions, polymer segments form an irreversibly adsorbed layer and show a slowdown in the glassy dynamics and thus an increase in the thermal glass transition temperature compared to the bulk-like values. The growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer showed a deviation for both poly (bisphenol-A carbonate) (PBAC) and polysulfone (PSU), two bulky polymers containing a functional group (phenyl ring) in the backbone. T2 - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Online Poster Conference CY - Online meeting DA - 05.03.2024 KW - Adsorbed Layer KW - Thin Films KW - Atomic Force Microscopy KW - Ellipsometry PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-59625 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -