Determination of Nanoscale Mechanical Properties of Polymers via Plasmonic Nanoantennas

BOGGIANO, HILARIO D.; CORTÉS, EMILIANO; SCARPETTINI, ALBERTO F.; BRAGAS, ANDREA V.; BERTÉ, RODRIGO; MAIER, STEFAN A.

ACS Photonics

ACS Publications

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2020 p. 1403 - 1409

2330-4022

Nanotechnology and the consequent emergence ofminiaturized devices are driving the need to improve ourunderstanding of the mechanical properties of a myriad ofmaterials. Here we focus on amorphous polymeric materials andintroduce a new way to determine the nanoscale mechanicalresponse of polymeric thin films in the GHz range, using ultrafastoptical means. Coupling of the films to plasmonic nanoantennasexcited at their vibrational eigenfrequencies allows the extraction ofthe values of the mechanical moduli as well as the estimation of the glass transition temperature via time-domain measurements, heredemonstrated for PMMA films. This nanoscale method can be extended to the determination of mechanical and elastic properties ofa wide range of spatially strongly confined materials.