Relaxation processes and glass transition in confined 1,4-polybutadiene films: A Molecular Dynamics study

We will present results from Molecular Dynamics simulations of a chemically realistic model of 1,4-polybutadiene (PB) chains confined by graphite walls. Relaxation processes in this system are heterogeneous and anisotropic. We will present evidence for a slow additional relaxation process related to chain desorption from the walls. We also study the structural relaxation resolved with respect to the distance from the graphite walls and show the influence of structural changes on the relaxation behavior. The temperature dependence of the dielectric relaxation in layers of different thickness near the walls shows no indication of a shift of $T_g$ as a function of thickness when analyzed with a Vogel-Fulcher fit. We explain this by the importance of intramolecular dihedral barriers for the glass transition in PB which dominate over the density changes next to a wall except for a 1 nm thick layer directly at the wall.