TY - CONF A1 - Gawek, Marcel A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Hertwig, Andreas A1 - Schönhals, Andreas 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 - CONF A1 - Schönhals, Andreas A1 - Yin, Huajie A1 - Konnerts, Nora A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Molecular mobility and physical aging of polymers with intrinsic microporosity as revealed by dielectric spectroscopy N2 - The dielectric properties of different polymers with intrinsic microporosity are investigated by braodband dielectric spectroscopy. The results are discussed with regard to the structure T2 - Spring Meeting of German Physical Society CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 12.03.2018 KW - Polymers with intrinsic microporosity KW - Gas separation membranes KW - Dielectric spectroscopy PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44490 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schönhals, Andreas A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Madkour, Sherif T1 - Nano-sized Relaxation Spectroscopy of Miscible PVME/PS Blend Thin Films N2 - The moleculat dynamics of ultra thin films of polystyrene/poly(vinyl methyl ether) blends as revealed by nanosized specific heat and dielectric spectroscopy is discussed. T2 - Viscous liquids and the glass transition XV CY - Søminestationen, Holbæk, Denmark DA - 21.06.2018 KW - Thin polymeric films KW - Dielectric spectroscopy KW - Specific heat spectroscopx PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45280 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Glass transition of thin polymeric films as revealed by calorimetric and dielectric techniques N2 - The structure and dynamics of thin polymeric films is reviewed and discussed in the frame work of novel theoretical approaches T2 - Lähnwitzseminar on Calorimetry CY - Rostock-Warnemünde, Germany DA - 03.06.2018 KW - Thin polymeric films KW - Dielectric spectroscopy KW - Thermal süectroscopy PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45164 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Molecular dynamics of an asymmetric PVME/PS Blend investigated by broadband dielectric and specific heat spectroscopy N2 - Over the past decades research on the molecular dynamics of miscible polymer blends are of topical interest in the literature, in an attempt to understand the segmental mobilty of individual components, as it is affected by blending. In general, miscible polymer blends exhibit a complex behavior of the molecular mobility. For an A/B blend the relaxation times of component A and component B are affected by the spatial local compositional heterogeneity, present in binary systems on a microscopic level, regardless of the macroscopic homogeneity. Here, a combination of broadband dielectric and specific heat spectroscopy was employed to study the dynamically asymmetric PVME/PS blend with seven different compositions, focusing on samples with high PS contents. Considering that PS is dielectrically invisible, BDS is a powerful technique to study the response of PVME, as it is affected by PS segments. In this work the well-known binary relaxation times distribution of PVME in a blend, originating from the spatial local heterogeneity, was studied over ten decades in frequency, for the first time in literature. Secondly, one of the detected processes, α’-relaxation, shows a crossover from high-temperature behavior (system in equilibrium) towards a low temperature regime, where PS undergoes the thermal glass transition, resulting in confined segmental dynamics of PVME within a frozen network of PS. Here, we introduce a precise mathematical tool to distinguish between the temperature dependency regimes of the process, and examine the composition dependence of the crossover temperature, detected by dielectric spectroscopy. Moreover, the dielectric data was compared in detail with results obtained by specific heat spectroscopy. This comparison provides new insights in the dynamics and dynamic heterogeneity of the PVME/PS blend system. T2 - 10th Conference on Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy and its Applications CY - Brussels, Belgium DA - 26.08.2018 KW - Polymer blends KW - Dielectric spectroscopy KW - Specific heat spectroscopy PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45917 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Szymoniak, Paulina A1 - Madkour, Sherif A1 - Schönhals, Andreas T1 - Dynamics of nanoscopically confined PVME in thin films of an asymmetric miscible PVME/PS blend N2 - In recent years, substantial efforts have been devoted to investigating nanoscopic confinement of polymers, and its effect on glassy dynamics. Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS) was used to study the dynamics of ultra-thin films of PVME/PS 50/50 wt% blend, employing a novel nano-structured capacitor sample arrangement. The investigated system shows a complex dynamic behavior. First, an α-relaxation, related to a bulk-like layer was found. Second, an α’-relaxation was observed, characteristic for dynamically asymmetric blends, where the out of equilibrium dynamics is attributed to weakly-cooperative PVME segments relaxing within a frozen environment of PS segments. Third, for thinnest films, an Arrhenius-like process was dominant in the dielectric spectra, indicating localized fluctuations of the segments. Relaxation rates of this process resembled that of the degenerated α-relaxation of the adsorbed layer, found for pure PVME [1], thus it was assigned accordingly. For thinnest films, this process undergoes a further confinement, due to the topological constraints, introduced by PS. Such multiple confinement effect has not been reported for ultra-thin films of polymer blends, before this study [2]. [1] Madkour, S. et al. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 7535. [2] Madkour, S. et al. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 37289. T2 - 10th Conference on Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy and its Applications CY - Brussels, Belgium DA - 26.08.2018 KW - Polymer blends KW - Thin polymer films KW - Dielectric spectroscopy KW - Specific heat spectroscopy PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-45919 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -