Issue 15, 2015

Glassy dynamics of poly(2-vinyl-pyridine) brushes with varying grafting density

Abstract

The molecular dynamics of poly(2-vinyl-pyridine) (P2VP) brushes is measured by Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS) in a wide temperature (250 K to 440 K) and broad spectral (0.1 Hz to 1 MHz) range. This is realized using nanostructured, highly conductive silicon electrodes being separated by silica spacers as small as 35 nm. A “grafting-to”-method is applied to prepare the P2VP-brushes with five different grafting densities (0.030 nm−2 to 0.117 nm−2), covering the “true-brush” regime with highly stretched coils and the “mushroom-to-brush” transition regime. The film thickness ranges between 1.8 to 7.1 (±0.2) nm. Two relaxations are observed, an Arrhenius-like process being attributed to fluctuations in the poly(glycidyl-methacrylate) (PGMA) linker used for the grafting reaction and the segmental dynamics (dynamic glass transition) of the P2VP brushes. The latter is characterized by a Vogel–Fulcher–Tammann dependence similar to bulk P2VP. The results can be comprehended considering the length scale on which the dynamic glass transition (≤1 nm) takes place.

Graphical abstract: Glassy dynamics of poly(2-vinyl-pyridine) brushes with varying grafting density

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Jan 2015
Accepted
25 Feb 2015
First published
26 Feb 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Soft Matter, 2015,11, 3062-3066

Author version available

Glassy dynamics of poly(2-vinyl-pyridine) brushes with varying grafting density

N. Neubauer, R. Winkler, M. Tress, P. Uhlmann, M. Reiche, W. K. Kipnusu and F. Kremer, Soft Matter, 2015, 11, 3062 DOI: 10.1039/C5SM00213C

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