文档介绍：Interfacial Phenomena in Thin Polymer Films:
Phase Coexistence and Segregation
Andrzej Budkowski
Institute of Physics, Jagellonian University, Reymonta 4, PL-30–059 Kraków, Poland
E-mail: ******@cyf-
Interfaces formed or exposed by polymer mixtures are often employed in modern techno-
logical applications. This is especially true for thin polymer films used nowadays in pho-
toresist lithography, electrooptical devices or nanometer-scale surface patterning. Apart
from these technology-oriented aspects the interfacial phenomena in thin polymer films
pose a fundamental scientific challenge to physics of polymers and thermodynamics of
condensed matter. This work reviews experimental results on the equilibrium properties of
interfaces created by polymer mixtures confined in thin films. It confronts experimental
data with theoretical expectations based mainly on mean field models. Most of the data
have been obtained by high resolution profiling techniques emerged in the last decade.
These techniques allow us to trace concentration vs depth profiles across a thin film with a
depth resolution better than the characteristic size of a polymer coil. The interfacial phe-
nomena of phase coexistence and segregation are described as observed in thin polymer
films. This work also considers related issues in the focus of current research such as wet-
ting phenomena, finite size effects expected in very thin films, surface (and bulk) properties
of mixtures with stiffness disparity and conformational properties of end-segregated mac-
romolecules forming polymer brushes.
List of Symbols and Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 Phase Coexistence in Binary Polymer Blends . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Mean Field Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Review of Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Pha