Macromolecules, Vol.34, No.17, 6029-6038, 2001
Influence of entanglements on the time dependence of mixing in nonradiative energy transfer studies of polymer diffusion in latex films
We report energy transfer experiments on poly(butyl methacrylate) (PBMA) latex films prepared from a 1:1 mixture of donor- and acceptor-labeled latex particles. In one set of samples, the particles contain low molecular weight polymer (M-w = 34 000) comparable to the entanglement molecular weight (M-e) of PBMA. For this sample, the extent of mixing f(m) (defined as the fractional increase in the energy transfer quantum yield) increased with time as t(1/2), consistent with diffusion that follows Fick's law. In the second set of experiments, involving polymer with M-w = 380 000 (M-w > 10M(e)), we observe a change in the time dependence of f(m). At early times, for values of f(m) < 0.2, f(w) scales as t(1/2). There is a sharp crossover to a t(1/4) scaling relationship for values of f(m) > 0.2. The most likely explanation of the early-time behavior is Fickian diffusion of the lowest molecular weight components of the broadly disperse polymer (M-w/M-n = 3). The scaling of f(m) with t1/4 does not appear to be consistent with the predictions of the theory of polymer diffusion across interfaces. The parameter f(m) is a measure of the number of monomers crossing the interface N(t). For diffusion across a planar interface, N(t) is predicted to increase as t(3/4) if the chain ends are uniform and as t(1/2) if they are segregated to the interface.