TY - JOUR A1 - Schönhals, Andreas A1 - Zorn, R. A1 - Frick, B. T1 - Inelastic neutron spectroscopy as a tool to investigate nanoconfined polymer systems N2 - The effect of a nanometer scale confinement (pore sizes 7.5 nm down to 2.5 nm) on the vibrational density of states (VDOS) and on the molecular dynamics of Poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) and Poly(-methyl phenyl siloxane) (PMPS) is studied by inelastic Neutron scattering. The high penetration depth of neutrons makes neutron scattering a suitable tool for the study of confined systems. Moreover, Neutrons are sensitive to light nuclei therefore the confined polymers can be investigated directly, more or less independently of the confining host. Resulting findings are firstly, a reduction of the low frequency contributions to the VDOS below the Boson Peak frequency for both polymers. Including literature data, this reduction can be regarded as a more general feature for glass-forming systems confined by hard walls. Secondly, clear deviations in the temperature dependence of the mean squared displacement of the confined molecules compared to the bulk were found close to the thermal glass transition temperature, whereas localized methyl group rotations were only weakly influenced. Furthermore, the molecular dynamics is accessed. The combination of neutron Time-of-Flight with neutron backscattering, thus covering a broad dynamical range from sub ps to ns, reveal clear influence from confinement on the intermediate incoherent scattering function S(q,t). The latter was obtained by combining the inverse Fourier transform of the individual dynamical structure factors measured by the both methods. The time and q dependence of S(q,t) are discussed in detail for the local methyl group rotations and the segmental dynamics, considering both the interaction of the segments with the pore walls and possible geometrical confinement effects. KW - Confinement KW - Density of states KW - Dynamic glass transition PY - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2016.06.006 SN - 0032-3861 SN - 1873-2291 VL - 105 SP - 393 EP - 406 PB - Elsevier AN - OPUS4-38256 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -