Journal article
Asymmetric Liquid Crystalline Rod-Coil Block Copolymer System
Polymeric materials science and engineering, Vol.93
01 Oct 2005
Abstract
Diblock copolymers (BCs) are macromolecules obtained by the polymerization of two chemically distinct monomer types. Due to the incompatibility of the combining segments that are chemically bonded together, BCs undergo phase separation and form ordered domains at nanoscale. This inherent property of block copolymers, in solid and solution states, instigates their employment in various fields of engineering and technology such as drug delivery, lithography, as surfactants, adhesives and thermoplastic elastomers, as membranes in fuel cell design etc. Introducing a liquid crystalline (LC) phase as one of the segments in the block copolymer system results in liquid crystalline domains in nanoenvironment with improved electrical and optical properties accompanied with mechanical stability that make the liquid crystalline block copolymers (LCBCP) a unique class of materials. It is essential to understand the interplay between the combining segments and their mutual influences to understand the fundamentals of hierarchical self assembly in polymeric systems. Especially, there is growing interest to understand the self-assembly behavior of the rod-coil LCBCP system, where one of the combining block has a rigid rod-like conformation. Novel nano-patterns, such as the 'wavy lamellar', 'zigzag', and the 'arrowhead', have been reported in this class of polymeric materials. 1-6 Earlier, we have reported the hierarchical self-assembly behavior and phase structures of a series of symmetric rod-coil diblock copolymers 7 poly(styrene- block -(2,5-bis-[4-methoxyphenyl]oxycarbonyl)styrene) (PS-b-PMPCS). In this series of samples, the mesogen is attached laterally along the polymer main chain. As a result of the strong interactions between the mesogen and the polymer backbone novel hierarchical structures can be attained. In the present study, we report the hierarchically ordered rod-coil diblock copolymer structures of asymmetric samples of PS-b-PMPCS with varying volume fractions of PS.
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Details
- Title
- Asymmetric Liquid Crystalline Rod-Coil Block Copolymer System
- Creators
- Kishore TennetiXiaofang ChenChristopher LiXinhua Wan
- Publication Details
- Polymeric materials science and engineering, Vol.93
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Materials Science and Engineering
- Identifiers
- 991019170406604721