Vacancy Diffusion with Time-Dependent Length Scale - American

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2010, 49, 12119–12124

12119

Vacancy Diffusion with Time-Dependent Length Scale: An Insightful New Model for Physical Aging in Polymers Aaron W. Thornton* and Anita J. Hill CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, PriVate Bag 33, Clayton South MDC, Victoria 3169, Australia

Physical aging models are reviewed and further developed to describe the physical aging within thin (>100 nm) and ultrathin polymer films (10 µm

10 µm to 50 nm

thin film

ultrathin film 250 nm

250 nm to 100 nm

1 µm >1 µm

1 µm to 100 nm 1 µm to 400 nm