Nanofillers in thin polymer films offer unique advantage to potentially modify the film's thermal, optical, electrical and mechanical properties due to the high surface area to volume ratio and intrinsic property change at the nanoscale. Nanofilled polymer films have been shown to exhibit unusual film stability to dewetting with a non-monotonic behavior with nanofiller loading, potentially arising from a number of factors like competitive phase behavior, substrate wetting, and filler aggregation, particularly in the high nanofiller concentration limit. In this regard, block copolymer films can act as ideal nanoscale phase separated structured templates due to the feasibility of tuning parameters for directed self-assembly. In conjunction with incorporated cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), we seek to understand how individual anisotropic nanofillers can provide synergistic reinforcement to inherently anisotropic nanostructured block copolymer films. Current preliminary work displays a clear enhancement in the Young's Modulus with increased CNC loading using strain-induced elastic buckling instability for mechanical measurements (SIEBIMM) for thin films. To this end, we examine the nanoscale to microscale morphology of the blend film through atomic force microscopy (AFM), grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS) and optical microscopy, and CNC dispersion and percolation through high-intensity grazing incidence wide angle x-ray scattering (GIWAXS) analysis, coupled with SIEBIMM nanomechanical techniques.

Synergistic templated self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) in thin block copolymer films

249th National Meeting (2015)

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