Conventional tapping-mode AFM is a powerful tool to study the phase separation in multi-component polymer blends and composites. However, when the hardness of the various components in a polymer blend is close to each other, the phase contrast generated by conventional tapping-mode AFM may not be enough to visualize all the components. Hereby we applied the Dual AC AFM to study the morphology of polymer blends. Enhancement in the contrast in both the amplitude and phase images made the visualization of all components in a four-component and five-component blend possible. Additionally, the darkness of the higher frequency phase image was found to be qualitatively related to the hardness of each component therefore making it a useful tool to fingerprint each component in a polymer blend based on each component's individual hardness/ modulus.  This technique also allows us to establish structure-property relationships in these polymer blends. Further understanding on the physical meaning of the amplitude contrast is still under investigation.

Morphology study of multicomponent polymer blends by Dual AC AFM technique

244th National Meeting (2012)

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