Fundamentals of Organic-Glass Adhesion

In this work, we review recently developed methods for quantifying the fundamentals of organic-glass adhesion. This chapter will explore modeling methods, which serve to further develop the known scientific knowledge available. The problem of building more advanced models for characterizing adhesion is approached at two different scales, viz., electronic and atomistic levels. Implementing a multiscale approach, we present our findings on the role of polymer chemistry, polymer rigidity, structure of inorganic substrates, and inorganic surface attributes such as the role of hydroxylation and surface roughness. This work is focused on physisorbed systems consisting only of nonbonded interactions between the organic and glass interface.We find that hydrogen bonding, surface roughness, electrostatics, and the flexibility of organic molecules affect adhesion the most. This result is consistent across length scales for polymers ranging from the subunit or molecular fragment scale to the full polymer film thickness. Based on this work, we propose a few salient steps to drive the modeling capabilities towards assessing functional performance of organic inorganic multilayers, which are increasingly becoming an integral part of various electronic devices.