Depth profiling of polg(methyl methacrylate), poly(vinyl alcohol) laminates by confocal Raman microspectroscopy

We report a molecular depth profiling study of a PMMA/PVOH laminate on quartz using confocal Raman microspectroscopy. It is demonstrated that this technique can be successfully employed to study the hydrogen-bonding interaction between the ester and alcohol groups neat the interfacial region. The carbonyl, nu(C=O), band of PMMA shows significant broadening in the interfacial region. Various PMMA/PVOH laminates with different PMMA molecular weights have been studied, and it is demonstrated that the PMMA layers with lower molecular weight show a greater degree of interpenetration for a given annealing time.