Abstract
Surface forces apparatus experiments are conducted to examine the effects of shear upon the normal (compressive force) profiles of opposing polymer brushes in a good solvent. A diblock copolymer of polystyrene-b-poly(2-vinylpyridine) for this purpose, where the PVP block provides an anchor to the mica substrate for the much larger PS brush block. In particular, the focus is upon the effects of shear frequency, shear amplitude, and molecular weight on the measured force profiles in an attempt to explore brush dynamics under oscillatory shear. Results indicate that the normal forces between two opposing polymer brushes in a good solvent increase when an oscillatory shearing motion is applied. In particular a 'fanning out' of the tail of the force profile is observed. This increase in the range of the normal forces is attributed to an increase in brush thickness.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1213-1214 |
| Number of pages | 2 |
| Journal | American Chemical Society, Polymer Preprints, Division of Polymer Chemistry |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| State | Published - Aug 1998 |
| Event | Proceedings of the 1997 Boston Meeting - Boston, MA, USA Duration: Aug 23 1998 → Aug 27 1998 |