There are many surface sensitive techniques (such as AFM and SEM) which are routinely used to study nano-scale properties of interfaces. However, these techniques sometimes lack the ability to probe in-situ phenomena in-real time. In materials engineering, understanding how an engineered material will perform in-situ has relevance in understanding molecules behave at interfaces. Recently we have coupled two analytical techniques that allow scientists to quantify changes at material interfaces. We recently reported the coupling of quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) and ellipsometry. By combining these two analytical measurements we are successfully able to monitor changes in thickness, mass and structural properties. With the QCM-D component, we can determine the solvated mass and structural rigidity of a film and with the corresponding ellipsometric information we can determine the molecular mass, thus allowing us to de-convolute solvent contributions in a thin film. In this discussion we will review analytically how we are making these measurements and recent experiments that have been performed studying polyelectrolyte interfaces.

Coupling ellipsometry and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring to quantify interfacial changes in polyelectrolytes

242nd National Meeting (2011)

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