Microdomain Ordering in Laterally Confined Block Copolymer Thin Films

Published

November 29, 2007

Author(s)

August W. Bosse, Carlos Garcia-Cervera, Glenn Fredrickson

Abstract

We examine the effects of small-scale, hexagonal, lateral confinement on microdomain ordering in $AB$ diblock copolymer thin films using self-consistent field theory (SCFT) simulations. Specifically, we examine a hexagonal confinement well with side length $L$ approximately equal to five cylindrical microdomain lattice spacings. The commensurability constraints of the small-scale lateral confinement, coupled with surface-induced effects allows the confining well to have a significant effect on the perfection of microdomain order. We identify commensurability windows in $L$ that depend on the segment wall interaction, and the ``temperature'' annealing rate (modeled as a Flory $\chi ~ 1/T$ annealing rate). The effect of added majority-block homopolymer is also explored.

Citation

Macromolecules

Volume

40

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

block copolymers, commensurability, lateral confinement, mean-field, self-assembly, simulations, surface-directed ordering, thin films

Citation

Bosse, A. , Garcia-Cervera, C. and Fredrickson, G. (2007), Microdomain Ordering in Laterally Confined Block Copolymer Thin Films, Macromolecules, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=852775 (Accessed October 13, 2025)