Effect of Confinement on Polymer IC Chains Labotoire Paris Sud
Simona Capponi is a PhD student in the POLYFILM Network at LPS in Orsay, (France), in the Polymer group.
Present address: Labortoire de Physique des Solides, bat 510, 91405, cedex.
email: capponi@lps.u-psud.fr
She recieved her Masters in Physics at Perugia University (Italy). The final degree thesis was concerning the structural relaxation during specific polymerization reactions by means of photocorrelation spectroscopy.
After university studies she attained two postgraduate Masters:
-European Postgraduate Master in Materials for Micro- and Nanotechnologies (University of Pavia). She had an internship during this period at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), Leuven Belgium where she studied residual stress in silicidation processes.
-Postgraduate Upper Level Master in Nanotechnologies of Polymeric Materials. (Organized by Nanofunpoly Network)
Present Work
The target of this thesis is the study of the effect of confinement on the dynamics of polymers, and on the shift of their glass transition temperature (Tg) with respect to the bulk Tg. Another target is the study of the kinetics of relaxation in confined polymeric chains.
Confined systems being considered are: block copolymers, grafted polymers, and spin coated thin polymeric films.
Three techniques will be used for this work:
AFM: Sensitive to the mechanical behaviour of the chains, it gives information about their dynamics, revealing if the system is close to the glass transition; thus, it gives the value of Tg in confined systems.
FRAP (Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching): Sensitive to the chain diffusion, gives information about the effect of confinement on the motion of the polymer center of mass (at the largest scale).
NMR: Sensitive to the motion of segments, and gives information about the effect of confinement on the motion at shorter scales; the experimental setup is still in progress.
