Related papers: Clarifying the controversy of the Tg depression in…
We measure the isothermal rejuvenation of stable glass films of poly(styrene) and poly(methylmethacrylate). We demonstrate that the propagation of the front responsible for the transformation to a supercooled-liquid state can serve as a…
Freestanding thin polymer films with high molecular weights exhibit an anomalous decrease in the glass-transition temperature with film thickness. Specifically, in such materials, the measured glass-transition temperature evolves in an…
We develop the Elastically Collective Nonlinear Langevin Equation theory to investigate, for the first time, glassy dynamics in capped metallic glass thin films. Finite-size effects on the spatial gradient of structural relaxation time and…
Polymer self-adhesion due to the interdiffusion of macromolecules has been an active area of research for several decades [70, 43, 62, 42, 72, 73, 41]. Here, we report a new phenomenon of sub-Tg, solid-state, plasticity-induced bonding;…
When the cooling rate $v$ is smaller than a certain material-dependent threshold, the glass transition temperature $T_g$ becomes to a certain degree the "material parameter" being nearly independent on the cooling rate. The common method to…
Searching for the ideal glass transition, we exploit the ability of glassy polymer films to explore low energy states in remarkably short time scales. We use 30 nm thick polystyrene (PS) films, which in the supercooled state basically…
The aging behavior is investigated for thin films of atactic polystyrene through measurements of complex electric capacitance. During isothermal aging process the real part of the electric capacitance increases with aging time, while the…
The expression of temperature distribution along a film thickness is derived and distribution of temperature in the film as the substrate is heated is shown. The variation of film resistance with different substrate temperature is…
We present a study of orientational relaxation dynamics in thin films of a low-molecular-weight glass-former as a function of temperature and film thickness. The relaxation is probed by second-harmonic generation after release of a poling…
The temperature at which supercooled liquids turn into solid-like glasses ($T_g$) can change at the free surface, affecting the properties of nanostructured glasses and their applications. However, inadequate experimental resolution to…
The force-level Elastically Collective Nonlinear Langevin Equation theory of activated relaxation in glass-forming free-standing thin films is re-visited to improve its treatment of collective elasticity effects. The naive cut off of the…
Thin liquid films on surfaces are part of our everyday life, they serve e.g. as coatings or lubricants. The stability of a thin layer is governed by interfacial forces, described by the effective interface potential, and has been subject of…
This paper reviews recent Monte Carlo simulation studies of the glassy behavior in thin polymer films. The simulations employ a version of the bond-fluctuation lattice model, in which the glass transition is driven by the competition…
We report on the thinning of supported liquid films driven by thermocapillarity. The liquids are oil films, of initial thicknesses of a few tens of microns. A local and moderate heating of the glass substrate on which they are spread on…
Using molecular dynamics simulation of a polymer glass model we investigate free-standing polymer films focusing on the in-plane shear modulus $\mu$ and the corresponding shear-stress relaxation modulus $G(t)$ as functions of temperature…
We consider thin fluid films placed on thermally conductive substrates and exposed to time-dependent spatially uniform heat source. The evolution of the films is considered within the long-wave framework in the regime such that both…
We report on the rejuvenation of thin films of polystyrene (PS) as they are heated from stable glassy states - prepared either through vapour deposition or physical aging. For films with thickness $h \gtrsim 200$ nm, the rejuvenation of…
Aging dynamics in thin films of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) have been investigated through dielectric measurements for different types of aging processes. The dielectric constant was found to decrease with increasing aging time at an…
The retraction of thin films, as described by the Taylor-Culick (TC) theory, is subject to widespread debate, particularly for films at the nanoscale. We use non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to explore the validity of the…
The dynamic and static properties of a supercooled (non-entangled) polymer melt are investigated via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The system is confined between two completely smooth and purely repulsive walls. The wall-to-wall…