Block copolymers phase morphology

As discussed below, the quality of the alignment (and even its direction in the case of lamellar morphology), is influenced by temperature, as well as the frequency and strain amplitude of the aligning shear field. No general theory for the alignment of block-copolymer phases has yet been developed. However, studies of a number of different block-copolymer systems show that in ordered states with cylindrical domains, shear orients the cylinders parallel to the flow, while for lamallar microdomains, two different shear-induced orientations are commonly found, depending on alignment conditions in both of these orientations, the flow direction lies in the plane of the lamellae. 

In the swollen block copolymeric materials, the insoluble block of the polymer aggregates into microphase separated domains that in turn are dispersed in well-defined, spatially periodic supramolecu-lar structures.(18) While the morphologies of these structures are sometimes indistinguishable from textures assumed by thermotropic (and lyotropic) MLCs, these block copolymer phases are frequently more solid-like in their physical properties. Multiple interconnections between microphase separated domains tend to establish static, 3-dimensional, translationally ordered topologies in the materials. These aspects of the mesogenic block copolymers can be emphasized if, for example, multi-block copolymers — chains with several distinct monomer compositions along its contour length — are swollen,(19) Reference 20 provides a current entry to the literature of mesomorphic block copolymers. 

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