Physics Department - Ultrastable Polymer Glasses
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Abstract
Ultrastable glasses produced by physical vapour deposition are fascinating materials that can mimic the properties of glasses that have been aged for thousands or millions of years. We use physical vapour deposition to make stable glass films of oligomeric styrene. These materials exhibit exceptional stability, and offer a unique degree of tunability. We will discuss a number of studies based on these materials including enhanced mechanical properties, and how we can use isothermal rejuvenation to probe depth dependent dynamical properties of glassy films.
James Forrest started his graduate career at the University of Guelph, Canada doing spectroscopic studies of proton irradiated solid hydrogens. After his PhD in 1994, Forrest changed fields to polymer physics with a postdoc also at Guelph. After this postdoc, he spent two years at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden. Forrest then took on a faculty position in Sheffield, U.K, where he stayed for two years before moving to the university of Waterloo, Canada in 2000. Forrest was promoted to professor in 2008, and was made a fellow of the American Physical Society in the same year. He was a co-recipient of the 2013 Canadian association of physicists Brockhouse medal in Materials Physics. Forrest’s research includes studies in polymers, proteins, and glasses