Proprieties of soft matter at surfaces and interfaces
Université Libre de Bruxelles
TThe Brussels node of the
PolyFilm RTN is the Department of Physics of the
Université Libre de Bruxelles. The scientist in charge and
vice-coordinator of the PolyFilm project is Professor Michele
Sferrazza.
Right: An example of the dewetting of a thin
polymer film on a thick polymer substrate (AFM image of the final
morphology; work in collaboration with A. M. Higgins at the
University of Wales Swansea).
Michele Sferrazza's research
interests lie in the understanding of the properties of soft
matter at surfaces and interfaces. In particular polymers and
proteins at surface and interfaces are studied using mainly
scattering technique, neutron and X-ray reflectivity,
complemented with ellipsometry and QCMD.
His interests are focused on the
understanding of confinement effects on the properties of
polymers at surfaces, with particular attention to the following
topics: fluctuations and interfaces in polymeric liquid mixtures:
wetting and dewetting in thin soft films; solvent-induced glass
transition in thin polymer films; polyelectrolytes at surfaces,
and conformation and kinetics of proteins adsorbed to
interfaces.
Above: Examples of neutron reflectivity data for a
polymer bilayer showing the effect of annealing time on the
curves and, in turn, on the interface broadening; in the inset
the fits to the data are shown.
In the framework of PolyFilm, our
group will study the effect of confinement on the properties of
polymer interfaces, particularly concerning wetting/dewetting
phenomena. The main motivation will be to relate any change on
the nature of the interface, when the films become thinner, to
confinement effects. The thin films will include a variety of
different systems, included grafted polymer layers produced
elsewhere within the network. These interfaces will be studied
using mainly neutron reflectometry at international
facilities.
Schematic diagram of the TOF reflectometer CRISP
at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (courtesy of RAL).
