1Institute of Instrumentation Engineering, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra-India.
2Department of Physics, National institute of Technology, Kurukshetra-India.
Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer films of different thicknesses areirradiated with 100 MeV Ag-ion, 75 MeV Oxygen- ion beams at differentfluences to study the swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation effects on the surface ofthin films. The surface topography, structure and surface mechanicalproperties of pristine and irradiated films are investigated by means of Atomicforce microscopy (AFM) in trapping mode. AFM operation in trapping modeis preferred for high resolution topographic image of surface and to avoiddamage to the tip and sample surface.
The AFM micrographs of pristine and irradiated PVDF samples showsmall granular microstructure. AFM morphological characterizations ofirradiated films reveal the formation of nano sized crater and hillocks on thesurface. The AFM is also used to estimate average surface roughness,hardness, grain size, grain density entropy and other structural parameters. It isobserved that the average surface roughness and grain size is decreases uponion irradiation and the decrease is dependent on the nature of ion beam and itsenergy and fluences. An inverse Hall-Petch effect has been observed forPVDF thin films upon ion beam irradiation i.e., decrease in hardness of PVDFfilms upon ion beam irradiation.
PVDF, SHI, AFM, TMAFM, TEM
