Polymer nanotechnology applied to polymeric nano-soft-materials

We have been developing new techniques to evaluate polymer nano-alloys and nano-composites. This "nanotechnology" can be classified into nano-three dimensional (3D) measurement, nano-physical properties evaluation systems, and nano-spectroscopy. As for the nano-3D measurement, we developed polymer oriented energy-filtered 3D transmission electron microscopy. With this method, we can access important 3D structural and elemental information that cannot be obtainable from ordinary TEM. Nano-physical properties evaluation systems were also established by developing atomic force microscopy force-distance curve measurement. The distribution of mechanical properties such as Young's modulus and adhesive energy was quantitatively obtained on high lateral resolution. These methods give new pieces of information unobtainable by the conventional techniques on polymer nanotechnology. Several results are shown here.