Probing surface and interfacial molecular structures of a rubbery adhesion promoter using sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy

The molecular structures of an adhesion promoter, polybutadiene-modified epoxy (PBME) rubber at surfaces and buried interfaces with gold (Au) were studied using sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. The SFG spectra showed that the soft butadiene part of PBME can segregate to the surfaces and buried interfaces in two base formulations. This is consistent with its application as an adhesion promoter. For the first time, the orientation of the segregated vinyl methylene groups of PBME at the surface and buried interface was evaluated. We found that the vinyl methylene groups at the surface were highly tilted and twisted by quantitative analysis; while the vinyl methylene groups at the buried Au interface were highly tilted by qualitative estimation. Furthermore, this study confirms that the sandwiched-face-down experimental setup can be employed to study the buried interfaces. This could be developed into a standard way to probe the buried interfaces between the commercialized resins and metal substrates.