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Nanoscale Pattern Decay Monitored Line by Line via In Situ Heated Atomic Force Microscopy
journal contribution
posted on 2020-03-19, 15:42 authored by Sonal Bhadauriya, Jianan Zhang, Jaejun Lee, Michael R. Bockstaller, Alamgir Karim, Richard J. Sheridan, Christopher M. StaffordWe
combine in situ heated atomic force microscopy (AFM) with automated
line-by-line spectral analysis to quantify the relaxation or decay
phenomenon of nanopatterned composite polymer films above the glass-transition
temperature of the composite material. This approach enables assessment
of pattern fidelity with a temporal resolution of ≈1 s, providing
the necessary data density to confidently capture the short-time relaxation
processes inaccessible to conventional ex situ measurements. Specifically,
we studied the thermal decay of nanopatterned poly(methyl methacrylate)
(PMMA) and PMMA nanocomposite films containing unmodified and PMMA-grafted
silica nanoparticles (SiO2 NP) of varying concentrations
and film thicknesses using this new approach. Features imprinted on
neat PMMA films were seen to relax at least an order of magnitude
faster than the NP-filled films at decay temperatures above the glass
transition of the PMMA matrix. It was also seen that patterned films
with the lowest residual thickness (34 nm) filled with unmodified
SiO2 NP decayed the slowest. The effect of nanoparticle
additive was almost negligible in reinforcing the patterned features
for films with the highest residual thickness (257 nm). Our in situ
pattern decay measurement and the subsequent line-by-line spectral
analysis enabled the investigation of various parameters affecting
the pattern decay such as the underlying residual thickness, type
of additive system, and temperature in a timely and efficient manner.
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PMMA nanocomposite filmsNP-filled filmsPMMA filmsrelaxation processesPMMA matrixfilm thicknessesadditive systempattern decay measurementdecay phenomenonpattern decaypattern fidelityAFMSitu Heated Atomic Force Microscopyglass transitiondata densitydecay temperaturesnanoparticle additiveglass-transition temperaturePMMA-grafted silica nanoparticlesSiO 2 NPNanoscale Pattern Decay Monitored Lineforce microscopypolymer films
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