Evidence for Viscoelastic Effects in Surface Capillary Waves of Molten Polymer Films

The surface dynamics of supported ultrathin polystyrene films with thickness comparable to the radius of gyration were investigated by surface sensitive x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. We show for the first time that the conventional model of capillary waves on a viscous liquid has to be modified to include the effects of a shear modulus in order to explain both static and dynamic scattering data from ultrathin molten polymer films.