Chain end effect on the surface glass transition temperature
Abstract
While the Flory Fox relationship has successfully predicted the bulk glass transition temperature polymers, there has been much controversy as to how this effect manifests itself at the surface of a polymeric material. where other relaxation mechanisms have been proposed. In the absence of specific end groups, the enhancement of the chain end density at a free surface is too small to be observed and hence it has not been possible to probe these assertions quantitatively. We show that by controlling the free end density at the polymer film surface using graft copolymers, we can rigorously prove that the Flory postulate holds even at the surface of polymer films. This work is supported by a grant from the NSF-MRSEC program.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..MAR.C1169P