6533b823fe1ef96bd127ebd8

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Shear-aligned block copolymer monolayers as seeds to control the orientational order in cylinder-forming block copolymer thin films

Aldo Daniel PezzuttiFriederike SchmidDaniel A. VegaAnabella Angela AbateRaleigh L. DavisNicolás GarcíaRichard A. RegisterGiang Thi Vu

subject

Materials sciencePolymers and PlasticsAnnealing (metallurgy)Ciencias Físicas02 engineering and technology010402 general chemistry01 natural sciencesInstabilityCylinder (engine)law.inventionInorganic ChemistrylawMonolayerTHIN FILMSMaterials ChemistryCopolymerExternal fieldThin filmComposite materialBilayerOrganic Chemistry021001 nanoscience & nanotechnologyCOPOLYMERS0104 chemical sciencesCrystallographyORIENTATIONAL ORDER0210 nano-technologyCIENCIAS NATURALES Y EXACTASFísica de los Materiales Condensados

description

We study the dynamics of coarsening of a cylinder-forming block copolymer thin film deposited on a prepatterned substrate made of a well-ordered block copolymer monolayer. During thermal annealing the shear-aligned bottom layer drives extinction of the disclinations and promotes a strong orientational correlation, disturbed only by dislocations and undulations along the cylinders of the minority phase. The thin film bilayer system remains stable during annealing, in agreement with self-consistent field theory results that indicate that although the thickness of a stack of two monolayers is not at the optimum thickness condition, it is very close to equilibrium. Phase field simulations indicate that the bottom layer remains undisturbed during annealing and acts as a periodic external field that stabilizes the orientation of those domains that share its orientation. Misoriented cylinders are rapidly reorganized through an instability mechanism that drives the fragmentation of the cylinders. As annealing proceeds, the fragmented cylinders are reconstructed along the direction imposed by the ordered bottom layer. This mechanism removes the disclinations completely while leaving dislocations that can be slowly annihilated during annealing. These results indicate that with appropriate control over a single self-assembling polymeric layer, it should be possible to propagate order in thick block copolymer films and to obtain structures with controlled orientational order. Fil: Abate, Anabella Angela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; Argentina Fil: Vu, Giang Thi. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz; Alemania Fil: Pezzutti, Aldo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; Argentina Fil: García, Nicolás. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; Argentina. Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza"; Italia Fil: Davis, Raleigh L.. University of Princeton; Estados Unidos Fil: Schmid, Friederike. Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz; Alemania Fil: Register, Richard A.. University of Princeton; Estados Unidos Fil: Vega, Daniel Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; Argentina

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2016-10-11
10.1021/acs.macromol.6b00816https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b00816