Macromolecules, Vol.39, No.26, 9385-9387, 2006
Confinement effects on the relaxation time distribution of the dynamic glass transition in ultrathin polymer films
The dynamic glass transition in ultrathin films of poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) is investigated by broadband dielectric spectroscopy. With decreasing film thickness changes in the relaxation time distribution are detected, leading, for thicknesses below similar to 20 nm, to an increase in the average relaxation rate. This is caused by an asymmetric suppression of the relaxation modespredominantly on the low-frequency side.