Abstract While an increasing requirement from both fundamental and application, a direct tensile testing of freestanding polymer thin films in the air remains a challenge, mainly due to their extreme fragility. This study aims to establish a facile and reliable testing system, and investigate the effect of specimen geometry on the testing. First, a thin film transfer and adhesive guide frame gripping technique is introduced. With low length-to-width ratio specimens, tensile testing of rectangle non-standard polystyrene films with thickness down to 45 nm is achieved on a commercial universal testing machine. By changing specimen width and gauge length individually, a scale law between system compliance and specimen width is then verified. After corrected by compliance, a constant modulus of ~3.15 GPa for 45–4319 nm thick polystyrene films can be obtained. This study provides a potential strategy to overcome operational difficulties in performing tensile testing of freestanding polymer thin films.

中文翻译：

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具有非标准几何形状的独立式聚合物薄膜的拉伸测试

摘要 虽然从基础和应用两方面的要求不断增加，但在空气中对独立式聚合物薄膜进行直接拉伸测试仍然是一个挑战，主要是由于它们极度脆弱。本研究旨在建立一个简便可靠的测试系统，并研究试样几何形状对测试的影响。首先，介绍了薄膜转移和粘合剂引导框架夹持技术。使用低长宽比试样，在商用万能试验机上实现了厚度低至 45 nm 的矩形非标准聚苯乙烯薄膜的拉伸测试。通过单独改变试样宽度和标距长度，然后验证系统合规性和试样宽度之间的比例法则。经合规性校正后，恒定模量为~3。对于 45–4319 nm 厚的聚苯乙烯薄膜，可以获得 15 GPa。这项研究提供了一种潜在的策略，可以克服在对独立聚合物薄膜进行拉伸测试时遇到的操作困难。