Issue 12, 2000

Refractometric discrimination of void-space filling and swelling during vapour sorption in polymer films

Abstract

Thin polymeric films have been deposited as upper cladding layers on a new integrated optical interferometer fabricated from layers of silicon oxynitride on a silicon wafer. The evanescent field of the probing waveguide mode transduces refractive index changes in the polymer layer into the measured phase changes in the device. Real-time measurement of index change and its sign is obtained. Upon exposure to humid air, we record water sorption by films of poly(vinyl pyrollidone) by a rapid positive index change for void-space filling followed by a slow negative index change for swelling. Sorption of water vapor into a thin film of the viscous liquid polymer polyethylenimine shows only swelling mode behaviour and a simple constitutive model can be applied to give the fractional water occupied volume.

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
27 Sep 2000
Accepted
27 Oct 2000
First published
15 Nov 2000

Analyst, 2000,125, 2173-2175

Refractometric discrimination of void-space filling and swelling during vapour sorption in polymer films

G. H. Cross, Y. Ren and M. J. Swann, Analyst, 2000, 125, 2173 DOI: 10.1039/B007847F

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