Related papers: Nanoconfined Polystyrene: A New Phase
The molecular structure of dimyristoyl phosphatidylserine (DMPS) monolayers on a water substrate in different phase states has been investigated under normal conditions by X-ray reflectometry with a photon energy of ~ 8 keV. According to…
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;…
Hydrocarbon films confined between smooth mica surfaces have long provided an experimental playground for model studies of structure and dynamics of confined liquids. However fundamental questions regarding the phase behavior and shear…
Motivated by recent experimental results on glassy polymer nanoparticles, we develop a minimal theoretical framework for the glass transition in spherical confinement. This is accomplished using our cooperative-string model for supercooled…
The $\alpha$-process (segmental motion) of thin polystyrene films supported on glass substrate has been investigated in a wider frequency range from 10$^{-3}$ Hz to 10$^4$ Hz using dielectric relaxation spectroscopy and thermal expansion…
Structure and dynamics of a polymer under confinement gets significantly altered due to the imposed geometric restrictions. Using molecular dynamics simulations, here, we explore the effect of cylindrical confinement on the kinetics of…
Densely packed systems of thermal particles in curved geometries are frequently encountered in biological and microfluidic systems. In 2D systems, at sufficiently high surface coverage, diffusive motion is widely known to be strongly…
The local glass transition temperature Tg of pyrene-labeled polystyrene (PS) chains intermixed with end-tethered PS chains grafted to a neutral silica substrate was measured by fluorescence spectroscopy. To isolate the impact of the grafted…
The glass transition temperature $T_{\rm g}$ and the temperature $T_{\alpha}$ corresponding to the peak in the dielectric loss due to the $\alpha$-process have been simultaneously determined as functions of film thickness d through…
Ultrathin films of widely different materials exhibit a dramatic enhancement of projectile penetration resistance under high--velocity impact. Despite extensive simulations and experiments, a unifying physical explanation has remained…
Antimony (Sb), an element with strong spin-orbit coupling, is predicted to undergo a topological phase transition from a topological semimetal to a topological insulator as its dimensionality approaches the two-dimensional limit, driven by…
X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) promise the diffractive imaging of single molecules and nanoparticles with atomic spatial resolution. This relies on the averaging of millions of diffraction patterns of identical particles, which should…
A bottom-up chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process for the growth of graphene nanomesh films is demonstrated. The process relies on silicon nanospheres to block nucleation sites for graphene CVD on copper substrates. These spheres are…
We have investigated the reduction of the glass transition temperature, $T_g$, for thin supported films of particularly small molecular weight ($M_W$ = 2 kg/mol) polystyrene, and found good agreement with earlier studies on larger…
Here we demonstrate the controlled growth of Bi(110) and Bi(111) films on an (insulating) $\alpha$-Al$_2$O$_3$(0001) substrate by surface X-ray diffraction and X-ray reflectivity using synchrotron radiation. At temperatures as low as 40 K,…
Confined geometries offer useful and experimentally amenable mechanical testing arrangements in which to study the molecular and micro-structural processes which govern plastic yield in stress environments dominated by hydrostatic pressure…
The effect of the adsorption of a polypeptide on the lateral interaction of dimyristoylphosphatidylserine molecules in different phase states on the surface of a 10\,mM KCl aqueous solution has been studied. Changes in the surface pressure…
Molecular Dynamics simulations of glycerol confined in $\gamma$-Al$_2$O$_3$ slit nanopores are used to explain controversial and inconsistent observations reported in the literature regarding the dynamics of viscous fluids in confined…
Several groups have reported spontaneous formation of periodic pillar-like arrays in molten polymer nanofilms confined within closely spaced substrates maintained at different temperatures. These formations have been attributed to a…
This paper is devoted to studying the recrystallization of 100 nm thick polycrystalline films of copper and silver. It is found that in copper films deposited by the thermal evaporation method onto a substrate at room temperature, a bimodal…