9350210 Lackritz "Gas Phase Interfacial Photopolymerization of Vinyl Monomers onto Metallic Substrates Studied using Surface Second Harmonic Generation" This AMPP research project concerns the characterization of "gas phase" photopolymerization shows promise in creating defect- free, uniform thin films with excellent electrical and optical properties for commercial applications such as protective coatings and electrical insulators. Other techniques for making thin films, such as Langmuir-Blodgett deposition and spin coating, yield films that have poor physical properties, are inhomogeneous, or are difficult to make. The issues to be considered in this proposal are how the final film quality is related to the interface and the polymerization mechanism and kinetics, and the characterization of the gas phase reactions. As a part of a long-term goal to design novel nonlinear optical techniques to study polymer processing, this research will develop surface second harmonic generation to characterize the dynamics at the metal/polymer interface. Using surface second harmonic generation (SSHG), issues that have not been resolvable in the past including rate laws and the dependence of the film properties on interfacial characteristics, can be effectively examined in a continuous, real-time manner. This research has two important deliverables: i) the development of an improved, generally applicable, analytical nonlinear optical technique for studying reactions at surfaces in real time, and ii) the resolution of important processing and characterization issues in a technologically useful polymerization method. The project is supported under the Presidential Faculty Fellow program. ***
