Polymer dynamics in nanoconfinement: Interfaces and interphases

The dynamics of polymers in nanoconfinement was studied by using neutron spectroscopy. A number of pronounced effects on different time and length scales for the polymers confined in nanopores of anodic aluminium oxide were observed. Local segmental dynamics was found to be dependent on the type of the interaction between the solid pore wall and polymer: attractive interactions lead to the formation of a surface layer with the dynamics slowed down as compared to the dynamics of pure polymer; neutral/repulsive interaction do not change the local dynamics. Attractive interactions cause anchoring of polymer segments on the surface creating an interphase between the polymer in close vicinity to the solid surface and pure polymer. In addition, at strong confinement conditions the dilution of the entanglement network is observed