Crystalline Morphology of Strongly Segregated Block Copolymers

3 Crystalline Morphology of Strongly Segregated Block Copolymers 

When of crystalline-amorphous diblock copolymers is sufficiently large, the soft microdomain structure is stable against the subsequent crystallization. Therefore, this structure is preserved through the crystalUzation process, that is, constituent blocks crystallize within the soft microdomain stmcture, to yield a crystalline microdomain structure (lower route in Fig. 10.7). Amorphous domains in the crystalline microdomain structure are not hard in this case, so that crystalline domains can deform moderately during crystalUzation in order to get a larger crystalUnity and/or favorable crystal orientation, which is criticaUy different from the crystallization of block copolymers with high-T amorphous blocks, as described in Section 10.3.2. 

Model crystalline-amorphous diblock copolymers with a sufficiently large are not easy to synthesize. Therefore, experimental studies on the confined crystallization within soft nanodomains are very limited, and a relationship between the detailed crystalline morphology and the deformation of soft nanodomains is unclear. 

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