TY - JOUR A1 - Yadavalli, Nataraja Sekhar A1 - Korolkov, Denis A1 - Moulin, Jean-Francois A1 - Krutyeva, Margarita A1 - Santer, Svetlana T1 - Probing opto-mechanical stresses within azobenzene-containing photosensitive polymer films by a thin metal film placed above JF - ACS applied materials & interfaces N2 - Azo-modified photosensitive polymers offer the interesting possibility to reshape bulk polymers and thin films by UV-irradiation while being in the solid glassy state. The polymer undergoes considerable mass transport under irradiation with a light interference pattern resulting in the formation of surface relief grating (SRG). The forces inscribing this SRG pattern into a thin film are hard to assess experimentally directly. In the current study, we are proposing a method to probe opto-mechanical stresses within polymer films by characterizing the mechanical response of thin metal films (10 nm) deposited on the photosensitive polymer. During irradiation, the metal film not only deforms along with the SRG formation but ruptures in a regular and complex manner. The morphology of the cracks differs strongly depending on the electrical field distribution in the interference pattern, even when the magnitude and the kinetics of the strain are kept constant. This implies a complex local distribution of the opto-mechanical stress along the topography grating. In addition, the neutron reflectivity measurements of the metal/polymer interface indicate the penetration of a metal layer within the polymer, resulting in a formation of a bonding layer that confirms the transduction of light-induced stresses in the polymer layer to a metal film. KW - surface relief grating KW - opto-mechanical stresses KW - bonding layer at the metal/polymer interface KW - rupturing of metal film KW - metal/multilayered graphene/polymer interfaces KW - azobenzene Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/am501870t SN - 1944-8244 VL - 6 IS - 14 SP - 11333 EP - 11340 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - THES A1 - Yadavalli, Nataraja Sekhar T1 - Advances in experimental methods to probe surface relief grating formation mechanism in photosensitive materials T1 - Entstehung von Oberflächengittern in lichtempfindlichen Materialien N2 - When azobenzene-modified photosensitive polymer films are irradiated with light interference patterns, topographic variations in the film develop that follow the electric field vector distribution resulting in the formation of surface relief grating (SRG). The exact correspondence of the electric field vector orientation in interference pattern in relation to the presence of local topographic minima or maxima of SRG is in general difficult to determine. In my thesis, we have established a systematic procedure to accomplish the correlation between different interference patterns and the topography of SRG. For this, we devise a new setup combining an atomic force microscope and a two-beam interferometer (IIAFM). With this set-up, it is possible to track the topography change in-situ, while at the same time changing polarization and phase of the impinging interference pattern. To validate our results, we have compared two photosensitive materials named in short as PAZO and trimer. This is the first time that an absolute correspondence between the local distribution of electric field vectors of interference pattern and the local topography of the relief grating could be established exhaustively. In addition, using our IIAFM we found that for a certain polarization combination of two orthogonally polarized interfering beams namely SP (↕, ↔) interference pattern, the topography forms SRG with only half the period of the interference patterns. Exploiting this phenomenon we are able to fabricate surface relief structures below diffraction limit with characteristic features measuring only 140 nm, by using far field optics with a wavelength of 491 nm. We have also probed for the stresses induced during the polymer mass transport by placing an ultra-thin gold film on top (5–30 nm). During irradiation, the metal film not only deforms along with the SRG formation, but ruptures in regular and complex manner. The morphology of the cracks differs strongly depending on the electric field distribution in the interference pattern even when the magnitude and the kinetic of the strain are kept constant. This implies a complex local distribution of the opto-mechanical stress along the topography grating. The neutron reflectivity measurements of the metal/polymer interface indicate the penetration of metal layer within the polymer resulting in the formation of bonding layer that confirms the transduction of light induced stresses in the polymer layer to a metal film. N2 - Azobenzolhaltige Polymere gehören zu einer Klasse funktionaler Materialien, bei denen durch ein äußeres Strahlungsfeld eine starke mechanische Reaktion ausgelöst werden kann. Durch die Bindung an das Polymerrückgrat können die Azobenzole, die unter UV-Belichtung eine Photoisomerisierung ausführen, was zum Teil drastische Effekte zur Folge hat. Unter Belichtung mit Intensitätsmustern, d.h. mit räumlich variierender Verteilung der Polarisation oder der Intensität des einfallenden Lichts verändert sich die Topographie der azobenzolhaltigen Filme, was zur Bildung von Oberflächengittern (engl. Surface Relief Gratings, SRG) führt. In dieser Arbeit wurde eine neue Methode vorgeschlagen, bei der das Verhalten elastischer/morphologischer Eigenschaften unter verschiedenen Belichtungsbedingungen, d.h. mit unterschiedlicher Verteilung der Polarisation und der Intensität in situ lokal als Funktion der Position entlang der SRG aufgenommen werden kann. Außerdem wurde hier vorgeschlagen, opto-mechanische Spannungen, die innerhalb der photosensitiven Polymerfilme während der Belichtung entstehen, mit Hilfe dünner aufgebrachter metallischen Schichten abzubilden und zu analysieren. KW - Azobenzolhaltige Polymerfilme KW - Oberflächengitter KW - In-situ Rasterkraftmikroskopie KW - Opto-mechanische Spannungen KW - Metall/Graphen/Polymer Grenzfläch KW - azobenzene polymer films KW - surface relief grating KW - in-situ atomic force microscopy KW - opto-mechanical stresses KW - metal/polymer interfaces Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71213 ER -