Studying the Adhesion Force and Glass Transition of Thin Polystyrene Films by Atomic Force Microscopy

The relaxation behaviors of thin polymer films show a strong dependence on temperature and film thickness. Direct quantitative detection of the relaxation behaviors of thin polymer films at nanometer scale by traditional instruments is however challenging. In this study, we employed atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based force-distance curve to study the relaxation dynamics and the film thickness dependence of glass transition temperature (T(g)) for normal thin polystyrene (PS) films supported on silicon substrate. The adhesion force (F(ad)) between AFM tip and normal thin PS film surfaces was quantitatively detected in situ under the variation of temperature and film thickness. The T(g) of normal thin PS film was successfully obtained by the abrupt variation of F(ad) under temperature stimulation. Our result showed that the T(g) of normal thin PS films decreased with the decreasing film thickness. The study here could be beneficial for understanding the relaxation dynamics of normal thin polymer films.