Cylindrical phase of diblock copolymers confined in thin films. A real-space self-consistent field theory study

Yang, Yingzi; Qiu, Feng; Zhang, Hongdong; Yang, Yuliang

doi:10.1016/j.polymer.2006.01.047

Cited by 61 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…When D/L is an integer, there is no frustration to pattern period L, and so parallel cylindrical structure is preferred. When D/L ) 1, there are one and a half cylinders in the planes perpendicular to the surfaces ( Figure 5c) just like that in the 1.5C | structure in a recent SCFT study; 48 when D/L ) 2, there are three and a half cylinders parallel to the surfaces, as Figure 5d shows. In the diblock system, the perpendicular cylinders are readily observed irrespective of the D/L value in ref 32.…”

Section: For Neutral Surfacessupporting

confidence: 58%

Monte Carlo Simulations of Cylinder-Forming ABC Triblock Terpolymer Thin Films

Chen

Liang

2006

J. Phys. Chem. B

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We systematically study the cylinder-forming ABC triblock terpolymer thin films using canonical ensemble Monte Carlo simulations. The simulated annealing procedure is applied to the self-assembling process. By judicious choice of the system dimensions, we elaborately investigate the effect of film thickness on the orientation of the cylinders. This confined triblock terpolymer system exhibits different phase behavior under the weak and strong surface fields. In addition, we also investigate the ensemble-averaged chain orientations and relative density profiles.

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Section: For Neutral Surfacessupporting

confidence: 58%

Monte Carlo Simulations of Cylinder-Forming ABC Triblock Terpolymer Thin Films

Chen

Liang

2006

J. Phys. Chem. B

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“…6 Much of the current work focus on the influence of surfaces or interfaces on the morphology of symmetric diblock copolymers, f = 0.5. 4,9 The results show that strong confinement has been shown to lead to an interesting variety of morphologies. 8 Relatively little work has been done on the morphology of asymmetric block copolymers thin films until recently.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Depletion-induced surface alignment of asymmetric diblock copolymer in selective solvents

Wang

Chen

et al. 2008

The Journal of Chemical Physics

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Phase separation of asymmetric diblock copolymer near surfaces in selective solvents is theoretically investigated by using the real-space version of self-consistent field theory (SCFT). Several morphologies are predicted and the phase diagram is constructed by varying the distance between two parallel hard surfaces (or the film thickness) W and the block copolymer concentration f(P). Morphologies of the diblock copolymer in dilute solution are found to change significantly with different film thicknesses. In confined systems, stable morphologies found in the bulk solution become unstable due to the loss of polymer conformation entropy. The vesicle phase region contracts when the repulsive interaction between the blocks is strong (strong segregation regime). The mixture of vesicles, rodlike and spherelike micelles and the mixture of vesicles and sphere-like micelles disappear in contrast to the weakly segregating regime. The walls strongly affect the phase separation of block copolymer in selective solvent, and the depletion layer near the surface contributes much to the micelle formation of the block copolymer. Interestingly, the self-assembled morphologies stay near the walls with the distance on the order of the radius of gyration of the block copolymer. The oscillation of the polymer distribution near the walls allows the surface phase separation to be observed due to the strong repulsion between the blocks A and B.

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“…For diblock copolymers confined by the environment of a system, the self‐assembly process is more complicated and interesting due to the confinement geometry and the interactions between the block copolymer and the surface. The self‐assembly in confined environment is a new approach toward preparing ordered periodic nanostructured materials and has attracted considerable interest in recent years 7–31…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confinement Effect on the Body‐Centered‐Cubic Phase of Diblock Copolymers in Film

Tan

Song

Yang

et al. 2008

Macro Theory & Simulations

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In this paper, we study the morphology of diblock copolymers with the body‐centered‐cubic (bcc) phase confined between two flat surfaces. Employing the Landau–Brazovskii mean field theory and the single mode approximation, we obtain three amplitude parameters as functions of temperature, surface field strength, and film thickness. Because of the effect of confinement size and the surface inducement, the morphology of confined diblock copolymers is different from the bulk structure. By controlling confinement size and surface field strength, lamella, undulated lamella, cylinder, and distorted cylinder can be observed in the bcc bulk phase of diblock copolymers. Also, we construct a “phase diagram” of confinement‐induced structures at different surface field strengths. We compare the present theoretical results with the other relevant theoretical results. The predictions about these interesting confinement‐induced structures should be observable in the experiments under suitable conditions.magnified image

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Cylindrical phase of diblock copolymers confined in thin films. A real-space self-consistent field theory study

Cited by 61 publications

References 53 publications

Monte Carlo Simulations of Cylinder-Forming ABC Triblock Terpolymer Thin Films

Monte Carlo Simulations of Cylinder-Forming ABC Triblock Terpolymer Thin Films

Depletion-induced surface alignment of asymmetric diblock copolymer in selective solvents

Confinement Effect on the Body‐Centered‐Cubic Phase of Diblock Copolymers in Film

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