In Situ Probing the Relaxation Properties of Ultrathin Polystyrene Films by Using Electric Force Microscopy

The rapid development of nanoscience and nanotechnology involves polymer films with thickness down to nanometer scale. However, the properties of ultrathin polymer films are extremely different from that of bulk matrix or thin films. It is challenging to distinguish the changes of physical properties in ultrathin films using conventional techniques especially when it locates near the glass transition temperature (T g). In this work, we successfully evaluated a series of physical properties of ultrathin polystyrene (PS) films by in situ characterizing the discharging behavior of the patterned charges using electric force microscopy. By monitoring the surface potential in real time, we found that the T g of ultrathin PS films is clearly independent of film thickness, which are greatly different from that of thin PS films (film thickness larger than 10 nm).