Salt complexation in diblock copolymer thin films

PMSE 31

Ling Yang1, Matthew J. Misner, polymatt@mail.pse.umass.edu2, Mingfu Zhang, mzhang@mail.pse.umass.edu2, Thomas P. Russell, russell@mail.pse.umass.edu2, and Benjamin M. Ocko3. (1) Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 120 Governor's Drive, Amherst, MA 01003, (2) Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts, 120 Governor's Drive, Amherst, MA 01003, (3) Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
The self-assembly of materials is emerging as a key element in the fabrication of functional nanostructured materials. Salt complexation within cylinder-forming PS-b-PEO thin films, where added salts bound the PEO block as the minor component, was investigated. Small amounts of added salts, on the order a few ions per chain, show large effects on the ordering and orientation of the copolymer films during solvent annealing, a process where we have shown a large degree of long-range lateral order can be obtained. The orientation of the cylindrical microdomains was found to strongly depend on salt concentration and the nature of the counter ion. Furthermore, with the addition of certain amounts of salts, we observed that the copolymer microdomains remained ordered at a high degree of swelling and an extremely large amount of lateral spatial correlations of the cylindrical microdomains was found in the swollen state, as observed by in-situ grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering.
 

Block Copolymers as Nanoscale Materials
8:00 AM-11:45 AM, Sunday, 10 September 2006 San Francisco Marriott -- Salon 7, Oral

Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006