Elastic constants and dimensions of imprinted polymeric nanolines determined from Brillouin light scattering

Published

January 18, 2010

Author(s)

Ward L. Johnson, Sudook A. Kim, Roy H. Geiss, Colm Flannery, Paul R. Heyliger, Christopher L. Soles, Wen-Li Wu, Chengqing C. Wang, Christopher M. Stafford, B D. Vogt

Abstract

Elastic constants and cross-sectional dimensions of imprinted nanolines of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) on silicon are determined nondestructively from finite-element inversion analysis of dispersion curves of hypersonic acoustic modes of these nanolines measured with Brillouin light scattering (BLS). The results for the cross-sectional dimensions, under the simplifying assumption of vertical sides and a semicircular top, are found to be consistent with dimensions determined from critical-dimension small-angle xray scattering (CD-SAXS) measurements. The elastic constants C_11 and C_44 are found to be, respectively, 11.6 % and 3.1 % lower than their corresponding values in bulk PMMA. This result is consistent with thickness-dependent changes in Young's modulus determined from quasi-static buckling measurements on PMMA films with lower molecular weights. This study provides the first evidence of size-dependent effects on hypersonic elastic properties of polymers.

Citation

Nanotechnology

Volume

21

Issue

7

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

BLS, Brillouin light scattering, elastic constants, finite element analysis, nanoimprint lithography, nanolines, PMMA

Citation

Johnson, W. , Kim, S. , Geiss, R. , Flannery, C. , Heyliger, P. , Soles, C. , Wu, W. , Wang, C. , Stafford, C. and Vogt, B. (2010), Elastic constants and dimensions of imprinted polymeric nanolines determined from Brillouin light scattering, Nanotechnology, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=903959 (Accessed October 8, 2025)