TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring Molecular Diffusion through Thin Polymer Films with Dual-Band Plasmonic Antennas
AU - Chen, Hao
AU - Singhal, Gaurav
AU - Neubrech, Frank
AU - Liu, Runyu
AU - Katz, Joshua S.
AU - Matteucci, Scott
AU - Arturo, Steven G.
AU - Wasserman, Daniel M
AU - Giessen, Harald
AU - Braun, Paul V.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©
PY - 2021/6/22
Y1 - 2021/6/22
N2 - A general and quantitative method to characterize molecular transport in polymers with good temporal and high spatial resolution, in complex environments, is an important need of the pharmaceutical, textile, and food and beverage packaging industries, and of general interest to the polymer science community. Here we show how the amplified infrared (IR) absorbance sensitivity provided by plasmonic nanoantenna-based surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) provides such a method. SEIRA enhances infrared (IR) absorbances primarily within 50 nm of the nanoantennas, enabling localized quantitative detection of even trace quantities of analytes and diffusion measurements in even thin polymer films. Relative to a commercial attenuated total internal reflection (ATR) system, the limit of detection is enhanced at least 13-fold, and as is important for measuring diffusion, the detection volume is about 15 times thinner. Via this approach, the diffusion coefficient and solubility of specific molecules, including l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C), ethanol, various sugars, and water, in both simple and complex mixtures (e.g., beer and a cola soda), were determined in poly(methyl methacrylate), high density polyethylene (HDPE)-based, and polypropylene-based polyolefin films as thin as 250 nm.
AB - A general and quantitative method to characterize molecular transport in polymers with good temporal and high spatial resolution, in complex environments, is an important need of the pharmaceutical, textile, and food and beverage packaging industries, and of general interest to the polymer science community. Here we show how the amplified infrared (IR) absorbance sensitivity provided by plasmonic nanoantenna-based surface enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) provides such a method. SEIRA enhances infrared (IR) absorbances primarily within 50 nm of the nanoantennas, enabling localized quantitative detection of even trace quantities of analytes and diffusion measurements in even thin polymer films. Relative to a commercial attenuated total internal reflection (ATR) system, the limit of detection is enhanced at least 13-fold, and as is important for measuring diffusion, the detection volume is about 15 times thinner. Via this approach, the diffusion coefficient and solubility of specific molecules, including l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C), ethanol, various sugars, and water, in both simple and complex mixtures (e.g., beer and a cola soda), were determined in poly(methyl methacrylate), high density polyethylene (HDPE)-based, and polypropylene-based polyolefin films as thin as 250 nm.
KW - diffusion
KW - nanoantennas
KW - organic molecules
KW - plasmonics
KW - polymer
KW - surface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy
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U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.1c02701
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.1c02701
M3 - Article
C2 - 34008953
AN - SCOPUS:85108284846
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 15
SP - 10393
EP - 10405
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
IS - 6
ER -