Polymeric liquid layer densified by surface acoustic wave

Creating densified and stable liquid is a straightforward strategy for the fabrication of strong and ultra-stable amorphous or glassy materials. The current study has discovered that a liquid polymeric thin film is densified under the application of a high frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW). The experimental evidence is the decrease in film thickness and the increase in refractive index, measured by ellipsometry, of polyisobutylene thin films deposited on the solid substrates, when a high frequency SAW (39.5 MHz) is applied to the system. Further investigations by polarization-resolved single molecule fluorescence microscopy have demonstrated that the rotational motion of fluorescent probes doped inside the liquid film is retarded and the dynamical heterogeneity is reduced. The results demonstrate that the application of SAW of high frequency makes the thin polymeric liquid film densified and more dynamically homogeneous.