Block copolymers have attracted abiding interest due to their exceptional self-assembly ability into rich ordered nanostructures that exhibit promising applications in many fields. In decades, continuous progress has been made in both experiment and theory, leading to some common knowledge on the self-assembly behavior of block copolymers. For example, bicomponent AB-type block copolymers share a generic phase sequence from disorder to hexagonally close-packed (HCP) or face-centered-cubic (FCC) spheres with a very tiny region, body-centered-cubic (BCC) spheres, hexagonal cylinders, double gyroids and lamellae as the composition increases from highly asymmetric to symmetric. Different architectures usually only shift the phase boundaries but do not change the generic phase sequence or lead to any new ordered phase. To satisfy the need of more potential applications, it is essential to expand the structure library of block copolymers. Although little success was achieved with the design of block architecture for new structures, architecture is still the main control factor on the self-assembly of block copolymers. As modern synthesis techniques advance, architecture has become a facile variable to be controlled in experiment. However, it seems an infeasible task to simply search the huge library of architectures for desired ordered nanostructures. In recent years, we have summarized a few useful guiding principles for the design of block copolymers. Accordingly, a number of stable unconventionaled nanostructures are obtained from our purposely designed block copolymers. For example, stable HCP/FCC, Frank-Kasper sigma and A15, Laves C14 and C15 phases besides BCC exhibit considerable stability regions in their respective block copolymer systems. Moreover, stable square-array cylinders and perforated lamellae are predicted, which are in contrast to the conventional hexagonal cylinders and double gyroids. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of tailoring block copolymers for desired nanostructures and even for desired properties.<br/>

Tailor the architecture and composition of block copolymers for unconventionaled nanostructures

2019 Spring National Meeting

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