Lamellar-in-Lamellar Structure of A-b-(B-b-C)_m-b-B-b-A Multiblock Copolymers

Abstract

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Lamellar-in-lamellar structure of binary linear multiblock copolymers

“…5͑b͒-5͑d͒. The values of k at the minima of F͑k͒ for the binary system and for similar ternary systems with P2VP end blocks 23 are given in Table I. Note that for the binary multiblock copolymer with m = 5 the free energies of the three-layered and five-layered structure are very close to each other, as indicated in Fig.…”

Hierarchical Structure‐Within‐Structure Morphologies in A2‐star‐(B‐alt‐C) Molecules

“…However, due to the relationship between the chain-stretching energy and the interfacial energy, as proposed by ten Brinke and co-workers, it is reasonable to infer that the number of small length-scale segregated domains formed within the large length-scale structures has to reach a maximum when N keeps increasing. [19] It should be mentioned again that since our modeled chains are indeed very short, the associated entropic effects on the resulting phase behavior of A-block-(B-graft-C) coil-comb copolymers (i.e. long chains) may not be reflected appropriately.…”

“…[18] In addition, ten Brinke and co-workers claimed that the number of internal layers within the lamellar-in-lamellar structure formed by the same types of copolymers in the strong segregation limit is mainly dominated by the balance between the stretching of the individual blocks and the interfacial area. [19] In our DPD simulations, since we only use one bead to resemble each alternating block, the stretching effects associated with the entropy and flexibility of chains cannot be treated properly. Still, the fact that each bond between two connected beads in our model is flexible enables the chains with more B and C alternating segments to create more possible distribution ways and hence to form more internal-layered structures.…”

Parallel versus Perpendicular Lamellar-within-Lamellar Self-Assembly of A-b-(B-b-A)n-b-C Ternary Multiblock Copolymer Melts

“…We assume that two neighboring C layers are separated by m + 1 A layers and m B layers (the total number of thin layers inside of the AB multiblock domain is k ) 2m + 1; Figure 4). A similar structure has been considered before for copolymer chains with the chemical structure C-b-(A-b-B) n -b-A-b-C. [19][20][21] We denote the thickness of the B layers as 2d B and the thickness of the C layers as 2H. Among the A layers, we will distinguish between the boundary layers which are in a contact with C layers and have thickness h + d A and the internal A layers having thickness 2d A .…”

“…[19][20][21] In this paper, we focus on a theoretical description of the lamellar structure formation in A-b-(B-b-A) nb-C ternary multiblock copolymers in the strong segregation regime.…”