CRCU

Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2017, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (5): 833-838.doi: 10.1007/s40242-017-7075-0

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Swelling Process of Thin Polymer Film Studied via in situ Spectroscopic Ellipsometry

XU Lin1, ZOU Zhiming2, ZHANG Huanhuan3,4, SHI Tongfei3   

  1. 1. Laboratory of Surface Physics and Chemistry, Guizhou Education University, Guiyang 550018, P. R. China;
    2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Electrochemical and Magneto-chemical Functional Materials, College of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, P. R. China;
    3. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China;
    4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China
  • Received:2017-03-01 Revised:2017-05-29 Online:2017-10-01 Published:2017-08-07
  • Contact: ZOU Zhiming,E-mail:2014005@glut.edu.cn;ZHANG Huanhuan,hhzhang@ciac.ac.cn E-mail:2014005@glut.edu.cn;hhzhang@ciac.ac.cn
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.51503048, 21504018, 21234007, 51473168)； the Grantof Guizhou Education University, China(No.107003001455)； the Grant of Science and Technology Department of Guizhou Province, China(No.QKH[2017]1137).

Abstract:

The swelling process of thin polystyrene films in quantity was studied in this paper using the in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry. We systematically investigated the influence of film thickness on the swelling process of thin polystyrene films. The results show that in the case of high Mw polystyrene(Mw=400000), the curve of the swelling degree as a function of time discloses that the relaxation of the long polymer chains accompanies the diffusion of acetone molecules. The swelling process is via the Fickian relaxation mechanism. Both the values of the equilibrium swelling degree and the diffusion coefficient of acetone molecules in the polystyrene film decrease as the film thickness reduces under confinement. However, in the case of low Mw PS(Mw=4100), the dewetting process is so fast before the equilibrium of swelling that the whole swelling process cannot be observed.

Key words: Thin polymer film, Solvent swelling, Dewetting