First inelastic neutron scattering studies on thin free standing polymer films

Glass transition studies in free standing polymer films have revealed values of the transition temperature, Tg, which were substantially reduced below the bulk for sufficiently thin films. Here we report on the preparation of two stacks of free standing polystyrene films: 70 films with a thickness of h ∼ 107 nm and 140 films with h ∼ 55 nm with equivalent total sample thicknesses of approximately 7.5 μm. We have performed the first measurements …