Investigation of Thermally Responsive Block Copolymer Thin Film Morphologies Using Surface Gradients

Published

October 20, 2010

Author(s)

Jennifer Y. Kelly, Julie N. Albert, John A. Howarter, Shuhui Kang, Christopher Stafford, Thomas H. Epps, Michael J. Fasolka

Abstract

We report the use of a gradient library approach to characterize the structure and behavior of thin films of a thermally-responsive block copolymer (BCP), poly(styrene-b-tert-butyl acrylate), that exhibits chemical deprotection and morphological changes above a thermal threshold. Continuous gradients in temperature and film thickness, as well as surface chemistry were used to examine trends in deprotection, nanoscale morphology, and chemical structure. Thermal gradient annealing enabled rate constants (2.16 × 10-5/s and 1.69 × 10-5/s) of the thermal deprotection to be extracted from a single BCP library on a catalytic and inactive surface, respectfully. A symmetric PS-b-PtBA was monitored through the deprotection front and had a morphology and orientation transformation from parallel structures to perpendicular cylinders. By using gradient techniques we are able to map morphological and chemical structural changes in a rapid fashion, determine reaction kinetics, as well as demonstrate that surface functionality affects the reaction time of the chemical deprotection reaction in our thin films.

Citation

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

Volume

2

Issue

11

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

block copolymer, gradients, thin films, temperature, surface energy

Citation

Kelly, J. , Albert, J. , Howarter, J. , Kang, S. , Stafford, C. , Epps, T. and Fasolka, M. (2010), Investigation of Thermally Responsive Block Copolymer Thin Film Morphologies Using Surface Gradients, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=906129 (Accessed March 13, 2025)