The self-assembly of block copolymers (BCP) into periodic nanoscale structures has made them attractive materials for nanofabrication. Directed self-assembly via chemical or topographic substrate modifications has been used for the control and rational design of polymer architectures. While these templating strategies provide strong thermodynamic control, in practice BCP patterns are complicated by metastable defects, and templating’s influence on pattern kinetics remains poorly understand. To study the kinetic evolution of these materials, <i>in situ </i>AFM uniquely allows the non-destructive, local monitoring of pattern dynamics under environmentally controlled conditions. Recently, new instrumentation has achieved video-rate AFM scan speeds comparable to the time scales of BCP kinetics, enabling direct observations of domain evolution in real space and time. We have applied this tool to several BCP systems to (1) understand the morphological ordering and defect healing of chemically-templated patterns and (2) trace the dynamics of terrace formation and coalescence.

Video-rate AFM imaging of block copolymer evolution

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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