Nonmonotonic Glass Transition Temperature of Polymer Films Supported on Polymer Brushes

Hoyeon Lee, Vaidyanathan Sethuraman, Yeongsik Kim, Wooseop Lee, Du Yeol Ryu, Venkat Ganesan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We modulated the grafting density (σ) and chain length of polystyrene (PS) brushes on substrates to probe their effect on the glass transition temperature (Tg) in overlaying PS thin films. The Tg of PS films was analyzed as a function of brush thickness (or σRg 2), where Rg is the radius of gyration of PS brushes. Our results indicate that PS films below 90 nm exhibit a nonmonotonic dependence of Tg on grafting density with the maximum Tg occurring near the regime of wetting-dewetting transition of the overlaying melt. The maximum Tg was found to be higher than the value of bulk PS system. Computer simulation results suggest that such trends arise as a consequence of the environment of enhanced friction presented by the brush layer and the overlap between the polymer film and the grafted layer.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4451-4461
Number of pages11
JournalMacromolecules
Volume51
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018 Jun 26

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
V.G. acknowledges funding in part by grants from the Robert A. Welch Foundation (Grant F1599), the National Science Foundation (DMR-1306844), to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (OSR-2016-CRG5-2993-1). Acknowledgment is also made to the Donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for partial support of this research (56715-ND9). D.Y.R. acknowledges funding by the NRF grants (2017R1A2A2A05001048, 2017R1A4A1014569) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (MSIP), Korea. H.L. acknowledges funding by the Yonsei University Research Fund (2016-12-0011).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Organic Chemistry
  • Polymers and Plastics
  • Inorganic Chemistry
  • Materials Chemistry

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