Soft Matter Physics. Polymers. Experiments.
Come join our research group.
Roth Lab News
- Congratulations to Alex Couturier for successfully depending his PhD dissertation and starting his new career at Nanoscience Instruments.
- Congratulations to Alex Couturier for being awarded the Emory Physics 2024-2025 Excellence in Graduate Research Award.
- Congratulations to Alphin Joshy and David Cai for successfully defending their Qualifier Proposals.
- Congratulations to Jamie Merrill for successfully defending his PhD dissertation.
- Research from the Roth lab highlighted in Emory News.
- Congratulations to Sartia Yadav, Alex Couturier, Jamie Merrill, and Sunmin Kim for giving great talks at the 2025 Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, Califoria.
- Congratulations to Will Presson and Carl Li for successfully defending their Honors Theses.
- Congratulations to Sunmin Kim for winning 2nd place undergraduate student poster at Georgia Tech’s 2024 Student Polymer Network (SPN) Symposium.
- Congratulations to Jamie Merrill for being awarded the 2022-2023 Montag Physics Award for research.
- Congratulations to Sunmin Kim for defending her Honors Thesis with Highest Honors, and her intership with Solvay.
- Connie Roth is awarded a NSF Special Creativity Award, 2022.
- Congratulations to Yannic Gagnon for being awarded the 2020-2021 Montag Physics Award for research.
- Congratulations to Jamie Merrill for being awarded a 2020 Science ATL Communication Fellowship.
- Connie Roth is named a 2019 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS),
and received the Fellows Award from the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS). - … see more news items →
Recent Publications
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Analyzing QCM Data Using a New Transfer-Matrix Model: Long-Ranged Asymmetric Gradient in Shear Modulus Identified Across Immiscible Glassy-Rubbery Polymer Interface
A.A. Couturier, J.C. Burton, and C.B. RothMacromolecules 2025, 58, 3520–3536.
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Development of broad modulus profile upon polymer–polymer interface formation between immiscible glassy–rubbery domains
Y.J. Gagnon, J.C. Burton, and C.B. RothProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2024, 121, e2312533120.
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End-Tethered Chains Increase the Local Glass Transition Temperature of Matrix Chains by 45 K Next to Solid Substrates Independent of Chain Length
J.H. Merrill, R. Li, and C.B. RothACS Macro Letters 2023, 12, 1.
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A Bayesian Inference Approach to Accurately Fitting the Glass Transition Temperature in Thin Polymer Films
J.H. Merrill, Y. Han and C.B. RothMacromolecules 2024, 57, 11055.
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Comparing the Impact of Different Adsorbed Layers on the Local Glass Transition of Polymer Matrices
M.F. Thees, J.H. Merrill, X. Huang and C.B. RothJournal of Chemical Physics 2024, 160, 044908.
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Temperature Dependent Perylene Fluorescence as a Probe of Local Polymer Glass Transition Dynamics
Y. Han and C.B. RothSoft Matter 2022, 18, 6094.
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Polymers Under Nanoconfinement: Where Are We Now in Understanding Local Property Changes?
Connie B. RothChemical Society Reviews 2021, 50, 8050.
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Local Glass Transition Temperature Tg(z) Within Polystyrene Is Strongly Impacted by the Modulus of the Neighboring PDMS Domain
Y.J. Gagnon and C.B. RothACS Macro Letters 2020, 9, 1625.
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Review and Reproducibility of Forming Adsorbed Layers From Solvent Washing of Melt Annealed Films
M.F. Thees, J.A. McGuire, and C.B. RothSoft Matter 2020, 16, 5366.
Current Research Areas
Coupled Dynamics Across Polymer Interfaces
Recent work from our lab has uncovered broad profiles in local Tg(z) across glassy-rubbery polymer interfaces demonstrating glass transition dynamics can become coupled between neighboring polymer domains over long distances. Current efforts are aimed towards understanding the cause of this unexpected phenomenon.
Impact of Surface Bound Chains
We are working on understanding the unexpected large increases in local Tg(z) that occur next to surfaces with tethered chains. Grafted and adsorbed polymer chains are widely used to modify interfacial interactions in polymer materials and nanocomposites, but the underlying mechanisms by which this causes property changes to the neighboring polymer matrix are not well understood.
Nanoscale Measures of Local Properties
An ongoing focus of our lab is the development of new experimental methods to measure localized polymer properties at nanoscale dimensions in an effort to understand how their perturbed behaviors near interfaces are interrelated.
Polymers in Art Conservation
In collaboration with Chief Conservator Renée Stein at Emory’s Carlos Museum, our lab is characterizing polymers used in the preservation and restoration of artworks in an effort to understand how their preparation conditions impact their properties.
Polymer Glasses
