Grazing incidence neutron spin echo spectroscopy: instrumentation aspects and scientific opportunities

Holderer, Olaf; Frielinghaus, Henrich; Wellert, Stefan; Lipfert, Frederik; Monkenbusch, M.; Klitzing, Regine von; Richter, Dieter

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/528/1/012025

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A GINSES experiment probes a system's dynamics perpendicular to a confining substrate (Figure 2). 35 In the case of adsorbed microgel particles, the translational center-of-mass diffusion is suppressed, but the swollen network has internal dynamics due to thermal fluctuations. A high coherent-to-incoherent scattering intensity ratio is crucial in a GINSES measurement to keep the background signal at a minimum.…”

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking inside Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgels: Nanomechanics and Dynamics at Solid–Liquid Interfaces

Witte

Kyrey

Lutzki

et al. 2021

ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The continuous improvement of synthesis leads to a great variety in the internal architecture and functionality of colloidal hydrogels. A majority of envisioned applications use microgels as colloidal building blocks for layer formation at solid substrates. In this context, a fundamental understanding of the influence of these substrates on the internal structure and physical properties is essential. Especially, the nanomechanical properties of adsorbed poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel particles are important for their application in cell cultivation, functional surface coatings, and others. Furthermore, these properties are closely related to the swelling behavior and the internal structure and dynamics of these microgels. However, the number of methods that are able to probe the viscoelasticity of adsorbed microgels over the entire vertical particle profile is limited. Grazing incidence neutron scattering techniques are suited to probe soft-matter samples with limited sample volumes at planar solid substrates and allow a resolution in the z-direction. We used neutron spin echo spectroscopy under grazing incidence to access fast thermal fluctuations (10–9 s) over the entire vertical particle profile. Atomic force microscopy nanoindentation was used to characterize the nanomechanical properties of adsorbed microgel particles prepared by batch and continuous monomer feeding methods. The resulting force maps revealed that batch microgels were “hard” and heterogeneous in their Young’s moduli, while the microgels from the continuous method were “soft” and homogeneous. Finally, neutron spin echo spectroscopy under grazing incidence revealed major differences in the vertical dynamic profile of both types of microgels.

show abstract

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking inside Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgels: Nanomechanics and Dynamics at Solid–Liquid Interfaces

Witte

Kyrey

Lutzki

et al. 2021

ACS Appl. Polym. Mater.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Neutron spin echo spectroscopy under grazing incidence combines the neutron spin echo technique and the grazing incidence scattering geometry. , This method requires a well-defined angle of incidence α in to provide a defined depth of neutron penetration Λ i into the sample. Therefore, the entrance aperture is reduced to 2 mm.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bulk Phase and Surface Dynamics of PEG Microgel Particles

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The adsorption of ethylene glycol (EG) based microgel particles at silicon surfaces was studied. Monodisperse p-MeO 2 MA-co-OEGMA microgel particles were synthesized by precipitation polymerization. Translational and inner dynamics of p-ME 3 O 5 and p-ME 3 O 26 microgels in bulk were investigated by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and neutron spin echo spectroscopy in transmission geometry (NSE). Here, cooperative diffusion and Zimm type dynamics were observed. The inner dynamics of these microgel particles in adsorbed state was explored by neutron spin echo spectroscopy under grazing incidence (GINSES). The reported GINSES experiments demonstrate the feasibility of these surface sensitive measurements. It indicates a slowing down of the inner dynamics in the vicinity of the substrate. At increasing distance from the substrate, the relaxation is comparable to the bulk.

show abstract

“…variation of the incident angle, the dynamics as a function of distance to the interface can be studied (Mü ller-Buschbaum, 2013;Milosevic, 2013;Nouhi et al, 2017). Thus, GINSES provides unique access to the internal dynamics of soft-matter systems at solid interfaces and is sensitive to the dynamics occurring in the pico-to nanosecond range (Holderer et al, 2014;Jaksch et al, 2019). However, performing the experiments and in particular the data treatment are still challenging tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding near-surface polymer dynamics by a combination of grazing-incidence neutron scattering and virtual experiments

Kyrey¹,

Ganeva²,

Witte³

et al. 2021

J Appl Cryst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Neutron spin-echo spectroscopy is a unique experimental method for the investigation of polymer dynamics. The combination of neutron spin-echo spectroscopy with grazing-incidence geometry (GINSES) opens the possibility to probe the dynamics of soft-matter materials in the vicinity of the solid substrate in the time range up to 100 ns. However, the usage of the GINSES technique has some peculiarities and, due to the novelty of the method and complexity of the scattering geometry, difficulties in further data analysis occur. The current work discusses how virtual experiments within the distorted-wave Born approximation using the BornAgain software can improve GINSES data treatment and aid the understanding of polymer dynamics in the vicinity of the solid surface. With two examples, poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) brushes and poly(ethylene glycol) microgels on Si surfaces, the simulation as well as the application of the simulation to the GINSES data analysis are presented. The approach allowed a deeper insight to be gained of the background effect and scattering contribution of different layers.

show abstract

Grazing incidence neutron spin echo spectroscopy: instrumentation aspects and scientific opportunities

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

Looking inside Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgels: Nanomechanics and Dynamics at Solid–Liquid Interfaces

Looking inside Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgels: Nanomechanics and Dynamics at Solid–Liquid Interfaces

Bulk Phase and Surface Dynamics of PEG Microgel Particles

Understanding near-surface polymer dynamics by a combination of grazing-incidence neutron scattering and virtual experiments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About