Bridging Experiments and Simulations in ObliqueAngle Polymerization

摘要

In this paper, we report the growth of nanostructured poly(p-xylylene) (PPX) films by oblique angle polymerization at variousdeposition angles. Additionally, a two-dimensional computational (Monte Carlo) model is implemented to study thenanostructured growth process. The morphology of the nanostructured polymer films are characterized by atomic forcemicroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Based on the experimental results, a competitive growth model is proposed andquantified in terms of column geometry (i.e., diameter and height), column spacing (i.e., periodicity), and column packing (i.e.,number of columns per unit area). We show that the nanostructured polymer growth obeys a universal power-law scalingmechanism at various deposition angles. The computational model predicts similar nanostructured morphologies to the obliqueangle polymerization obtained experimentally. Nanostructured polymer films may provide great advances in sensing andbiomedical applications.