Nanostructured morphology of polymer conetworks: Resolving the controversy between AFM and TEM images for disordered nanophase separated multicomponent polymers

POLY 633

Ralf Thomann, ralf.thomann@fmf.uni-freiburg.de1, Béla Iván, bi@chemres.hu2, Gábor Erdődi, erdodi@cric.chemres.hu3, Attila Domján3, Jonas Scherble4, and Rolf Mülhaupt5. (1) Freiburger Materialforschungszentrum und Institut für Makromolekulare Chemie, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Stefan-Meier-Str. 31, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany, (2) Department of Polymer Chemistry and Material Science, Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Chemical Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pusztaszeri u. 59-67, P. O. Box 17, Budapest, H-1525, Hungary, (3) Department of Polymer Chemistry and Material Science, Chemical Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pusztaszeri u. 59-67, P. O. Box 17, Budapest H-1525, Hungary, (4) Freiburg Materials Research Center, University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Str. 21, 79104 Freiburg, Germany, (5) Freiburg Materials Research Center and Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Str. 21/31, Freiburg 79104, Germany
Revealing the methodological difficulty by comparing AFM and TEM images for polymer conetworks with disordered nanophase separated morphology indicate that TEM is not a reliably suitable method for these systems, i. e. for exploring nanophase separated disordered morphologies with very small domain sizes (~20 nm or less). TEM pictures of such polymer morphologies may lead to misleading interpretations but are able to support AFM results. In other words, AFM images are much more reliable for investigating disordered nanophase separated polymers with domain sizes in the range of 20-30 nm or smaller.

 

Imaging Techniques for the Characterization of Polymers and Polymer-Derived Materials
8:00 AM-12:35 PM, Thursday, August 23, 2007 Westin Boston Waterfront -- Otis, Oral

Division of Polymer Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007