Nanomesa and nanowell formation in Langmuir–Blodgett polyvinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene copolymer films

Authors

Jiangyu Li, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Yang Luo, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Mengjun Bai, University of Missouri-ColumbiaFollow
Stephen Ducharme, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

11-17-2005

Comments

Published in APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 87, 213116 (2005). © 2005 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2136220 http://apl.aip.org/
Used by permission.

Abstract

In this letter, we report an energetics-based model to explain the self-organizing nanomesa and nanowell patterns recently observed in Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of polyvinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene [P(VDF-TrFE)] copolymers. The feature size of nanomesas and nanowells has been estimated using a linear stability analysis, and the morphology of the nanomesas and nanowells has been revealed by the numerical simulation, both in good agreement with experiments. A number of other model predictions regarding the nanomesa and nanowell formation also agree with experimental observations. The model can be used to guide the design and optimization of nanostructures in the P(VDF-TrFE) LB films and possibly in other thin polymer films.