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Session L36 - General Poster Session II.
POSTER session, Wednesday morning, March 22
Exhibit Hall, MCC

[L36.074] Spinodal dewetting in polymer/polymer systems

A. M. Higgins, R. A. L. Jones (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK), M. Sferrazza (ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK), P. Jukes, J. Sharp, L. Dryden (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK), J. Webster (ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK)

In the spinodal dewetting process, a thin liquid film breaks up due to the unstable growth of capillary waves driven by dispersion forces across the film. We have investigated the dewetting of a polymer melt substrate by a polymer thin film. The dewetting of polystyrene (PS) by a thin poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) film has been studied using optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy and neutron reflectivity. The characteristic length of the dewetted morphology has been investigated by changing the thickness of the bottom (PS) layer, which changes the effective Hamaker constant of the system. Changing the substrate from which the PMMA film was floated can control the degree of order in the dewetted morphology. The early stage kinetics of dewetting are followed by measuring the growth of the interface and surface roughness with neutron reflection. The kinetics are studied as a function of the molecular weight of the polymers and of temperature.

Part L of program listing