Self-assembly of poly(styrene-b-2-vinylpyridine) on neutral substrates

POLY 93

Shengxiang Ji1, Paul F. Nealey, nealey@engr.wisc.edu1, and Padma Gopalan2. (1) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706, (2) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706
Poly(styrene-block-methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) has been widely studied for use in block copolymer lithography. Due to questions concerning the pattern transfer properties of PS-b-PMMA, however, and the motivation to direct the assembly of more functional materials, we seek to generalize these strategies to other block copolymer systems. In this study, random copolymer brushes, poly(styrene-ran-2-vinylpyridine) (PS-r-P2VP) with multiple hydroxyl functionality were synthesized by nitroxide mediated radical polymerization to create neutral surfaces for achieving vertically oriented lamellar microdomains of poly(styrene-block-2-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P2VP) thin films. We demonstrated that sandwiching a layer of PS-b-P2VP between two PS-r-P2VP modified substrate surfaces could induce vertical alignment of the PS-b-P2VP. The top neutral cover is required since the St and 2VP blocks exhibit a large difference in surface energy.
 

General Papers: Polymers in Nanotechnology
1:00 PM-5:00 PM, Sunday, August 19, 2007 Westin Boston Waterfront -- Douglas, Oral

Division of Polymer Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007