# Experimental Evidence for a New Parameter to Control the Glass Transition of Confined Polymers

Srivastava, S and Basu, JK (2007) Experimental Evidence for a New Parameter to Control the Glass Transition of Confined Polymers. In: Physical Review Letters, 98 (16). 165701-1-165701-4.

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## Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites can be used to study confinement effects on the polymer glass transition temperature $(T_g)$ in a controlled manner by varying interparticle spacing. Using gold nanoparticles in polymethylmethacrylate, we show how the polymer $T_g$ can be tuned by variation of the nanoparticlepolymer interface width $(\sigma)$, keeping interparticle spacing fixed. We report the first experimental observation of a crossover in the sign of $T_g$ deviation for confined polymers by variation of $\sigma$ and propose a model to explain the dependence of crossover width on the spatial extent of cooperatively rearranging regions.

Item Type: Journal Article Copyright of this article belongs to American Physical Society. Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics 06 Aug 2007 19 Sep 2010 04:38 http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/id/eprint/11633