March 16-21, 2025, Anaheim, CA and virtual
Focus Session
SPLASHY

Advances in Polymer Structure and Processing

8:00 am – 10:48 am, Tuesday March 18 Session MAR-F62 Anaheim Hilton, Huntington A (Level 4)
Chair:
Michelle Calabrese, University of Minnesota
Topics:
Sponsored by
DPOLY

Thin film self-assembly of multi-arm star PS-P2VP block copolymers

10:00 am – 10:12 am
Presenter: Xuchen Gan (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Authors: Zhan Chen (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Christian Steinmetz (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Mingqiu Hu (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Zachary Fink (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Xuefei Wu (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), William Heller (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Bryan Coughlin (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Thomas Russell (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The variable architectures and controllable composition of star block copolymers (s-BCP) provide exceptional opportunities to manipulate their self-assembly in both bulk and thin films. We synthesized multi-arm s-BCPs with a polystyrene (PS) core and poly (2-vinyl pyridine) (P2VP) shell. Affinity of the hydrophobic PS core to the air and the hydrophilic P2VP shell to the substrate intrinsically influence the s-BCPs chain orientation at polymer-air and polymer-substrate interfaces. The star core-shell architecture and different arm numbers further affect their thin film self-assembly. Increasing the arm number from 2, 3 to 4 make the lamellar orientation change from parallel to perpendicular to hybrid. The formation mechanism of these arm-number-dependent orientations is elucidated through surface morphology analysis using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and depth-resolved orientation profiling via grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (GISANS).

 

This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under contract FA9550-25-1-0003 and Army Research Office under contract W911NF-24-2-0041.

Funding acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under contract FA9550-25-1-0003 and Army Research Office under contract W911NF-24-2-0041.

PRESENTATIONS (12)