Nanoscale investigation of viscoelasticity in thin polymer films using environmental scanning probe microscopy

The tribological and rheological behavior of thin polymer films at the nanometer length scale has become a topic of extreme technological and scientific interest. The friction and wear characteristics of ultrathin organic coatings are critical in magnetic storage media devices, as well as emerging technologies such as microelectromechanical devices. In the microelectronics industry, the ability to produce ultrathin coatings of photoresists and electron resists that are free of scratches and thickness fluctuations is a crucial step in any lithography process. Fortunately the need to understand the behavior of ultrathin organic films has coincided with the development of the scanning probe microscope (SPM) which is able to impose shear and tensile forces, and image the resulting deformations, on the nanometer scale. In contrast to traditional scientific disciplines like condensed matter physics and physical chemistry, the “nanoscience” community has only recently begun to examine the role of temperature in material response. This is largely because piezoelectric transducers are incompatible with substantial temperature elevation. A recent advance in SPM design has isolated the transducer and accompanying electronics from the sample, enabling investigators to heat samples to temperatures as high as 170°C without affecting the performance of the instrument. Using an environmental SPM, we examined the temperature and rate dependence of tip-imposed plastic and viscoelastic deformations in thin polymer films. Viscous flow in defects in nonwetting films was investigated as well. Chapter 1 provides a brief review of viscoelastic and plastic deformations in bulk polymers, the glass transition temperature, and the effect of confining polymer molecules to an interface on the observed glass transition temperature. Chapter 2 discusses scanning probe microscopy instrumentation, techniques, and applications to polymer thin film tribology. In Chapters 3 and 4, results are presented in which a scanning SPM tip induced patterns in thin amorphous polymer films which are attributed to mechanisms of plastic deformation (Chapter 3) and the relaxation from rubbery behavior to viscous flow (Chapter 4). Finally, in Chapter 5 we present an investigation of the dewetting and healing dynamics of mechanically imposed defects in thin metastable films.