Séminaire The glass transition of polymers in confined geometries

James Forrest
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Waterloo

For over 20 years now, there has been significant interest on the properties of highly confined glass formers. In particular, measurements of the glass transition temperature (Tg) and related dynamics have sometimes shown significant differences from the properties of bulk materials. In this talk we will review the literature, and describe a simple physical picture that allows one to describe the measurements of apparently reduced Tg values in both thin films, and nano spheres. We will then introduce a simple free volume model for dynamics in glass forming materials where the importance of dynamical length scale is explicitly derived. That model is found to provide an excellent description of bulk and confined glass formers.