title: Interfacial manipulations: controlling nanoscale assembly in bulk, thin film, and solution block copolymer systems.
abstract: Nanostructured soft materials from self-assembled block copolymers (BCP)s and polymer blends can enable the reliable, high-throughput, and cost-effective generation of nanoscale structural motifs for many emerging technologies. Our research group has studied the phase behavior of BCPs in bulk, thin film, and solution environments with a particular focus on using interfacial manipulations to control self-assembly and to access a vast array of nanoscale morphologies and orientations. These interfacial manipulations can be synthetic alterations that are directly incorporated into the BCP chain to modify polymer-polymer interactions, post-polymerization and non-synthetic modifications that affect block interactions, or changes to the polymer specimen's external surroundings to control self-assembly in a confining environment. Herein, we describe methods that we have employed to manipulate BCP self-assembly for various application targets, and we discuss the key effects of such manipulations on the resulting nanoscale morphologies.
authors: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, United States.
authors: Sarah E
authors: SE
authors: Mastroianni
authors: Thomas H
authors: TH
authors: Epps
mesh_terms: D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D012996:Solutions; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D012996:Solutions