Optical Probes of the Glass Transition in Thin Polymer Films Manuscript

OPTICAL PROBES OF THE GLASS TRANSITION IN THIN POLYMER FILMS

John Dutcher, Kari Dalnoki-Veress and James Forrest,
book chapter in "Supramolecular Structure in Confined Geometries",
ed. G. Warr and S. Manne (American Chemical Society Press, 1998), 13 pages, in press.

ABSTRACT

We have used three optical techniques, ellipsometry, Brillouin light scattering and photon correlation spectroscopy, to study the glass transition in a variety of polymer thin film geometries. Following a description of the essential features of these techniques, we summarize the results of our recent glass transition measurements for thin polystyrene (PS) films. In particular, for very thin freely-standing PS films, we have measured T_g values and corresponding structural relaxations that occur at temperatures that are reduced from the bulk value of T_g by more than 70 K.