Deformation of a Polymer Brush Immersed in a Binary Solvent

A density functional study of the structure of tethered chains in a binary mixture

“…The solid surfaces modified with tethered chains have been extensively studied in recent years due to their importance for a wide range of technological processes, such as adhesion, colloidal stabilization, lubrication, drug delivery, nanotechnology and chromatography [1][2][3]. The theoretical studies included scaling theories [4,5], self-consistent field methods [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], single chain mean-field methods [14][15][16], density functional theories [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and computer simulations [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. The structure of the polymer layer can play a fundamental role in these processes.…”

Morphological Control Over Three‐ and Four‐Phase Superstructures in Blends of Asymmetric ABC and BAC Triblock Terpolymers

“…In literature, many examples for lamellae, gyroids, and core-shell structured blend morphologies can be found. [36,38,43,59,60] Taken this into account, it is not against expectation to observe the same sequence in the transitions from core-shell double gyroid to core-shell cylinders and to core-shell spheres for both blend series. If the calculated compositions ( Table 2, calculation is explained elsewhere [40] ) for both series at the points of new single mixed phases (ISM 50 and ISM 30 /ISM 20 ) are compared, the similarity between them explains the same overall morphologies for either of the series at the same blend ratios.…”

“…The coexistence of two phases in binary mixtures of diblock copolymers has been calculated using the SCFT. [57,58] The transition from one morphology into another by passing through coexisting morphologies has been predicted and proven for blends of ABC triblock terpolymers and AB diblock copolymers by Birshtein et al [36] We believe, new single blend structures (which differ from both starting structures) with high chain constraint are mostly avoided if two coexisting structures with less chain constraint are possible. Thus, the coexistence of two mixed phases persists until the overall composition for one new single blend morphology with little chain constraint is reached.…”

“…One of the studies treated the theoretical analysis of ternary mixtures of lamellar forming ABC triblock terpolymer and lamellar forming ab and bc diblock copolymers. [35] Although this first analysis was restricted to a lamellar forming blend structure, starting from di-and triblocks which themselves also self-assemble into lamellae, in a subsequent work, Birshtein et al [36] extended their theory to diverse morphologies for the pure materials as well as for the resulting blends. Vilesov et al [37] were able to obtain a lamellar forming structure by mixing two cylinder-forming polystyreneblock-polybutadiene diblock copolymers.…”

Functional Macromolecular Systems: Kinetic Pathways to Obtain Tailored Structures

“…Also controlling the dispersity of block copolymers and blending of block copolymers are possible ways to influence morphologies and also discover new ones which led to a number of experimental and theoretical studies. [121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136] A number of hierarchical superstructures can be obtained by blending block copolymers with low molecular weight amphiphiles. [137] Blends of amphiphilic diblock copolymers with ionic liquids led to Frank-Kasper phases like the cubic A15.…”