Chain elongation suppression of cyclic block copolymers in lamellar microphase-separated bulk.
Chain elongation suppression of cyclic block copolymers in microphase-separated bulk was determined quantitatively. Solvent-cast and annealed films are confirmed to show alternating lamellar structure and their microdomain spacing D increases with increasing total molecular weight M according to the relationship D proportional, variant M0.59, which agrees quite consistently with the theoretically predicted power law, i.e., D proportional, variant M3/5. This result is in contrast to the well-established issue for linear block copolymers, where the relationship D proportional, variant M2/3 has been confirmed to hold both experimentally and theoretically. This means that chain elongation of each component block is suppressed considerably, owing to their looped conformation in strongly segregated bulk.
Matsushita
Y
Y
Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan.
Iwata
H
H
Asari
T
T
Uchida
T
T
ten Brinke
G
G
Takano
A
A