We have performed x-ray specular and diffuse scattering on liquid polymer films and analyzed the spectra as a function of film thickness and molecular weight. The results show that films whose molecular weight is close to the entanglement length behave as simple liquids except that the shortest wavelength is determined by the radius of gyration ($R_g$) rather than the monomer-monomer distance. When the molecular weight is higher than the entanglement length, the strong deviations from liquidlike behavior are observed. We find that the long wavelength cutoff vector, $q_{l,c}$, scales with film thickness, $d$ as $d^{-1.1\pm 0.1}$ rather than the usual $d^{-2}$ expected for simple liquids. If we assume that these deviations are due to surface pinning of the polymer chains, then our results are consistent with the formalism developed by Fredrickson et al. to explain the capillary wave spectrum that can propagate in a polymer brush.

• Received 24 June 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.157802