Diblock copolymer strong segregation

Strongly segregated systems, Todt > Tc < Tg with hard confinement. A strictly confined crystallization within MDs has been observed for strongly segregated diblock copolymers with a glassy amorphous block [29-42]. 

Ueda et al. [26] recently investigated a flow-oriented PE-fr-aPP diblock copolymer with Mw = 113 000 (Mn/Mw = 1.1) and a PE volume fraction of 0.48. This diblock copolymer is in the strong segregation regime (i.e., estimated xN = 10.5 and Todt = 290 °C) and has a lamellar morphology in the melt. They found a breakout phenomenon with the formation of spherulites in an intermediate crystallization temperature range 95 < Tc < 101 °C. At crystallization temperatures above 101 °C or below 95 °C spherulites were not formed and the crystallization was confined within the lamellar MD. Ueda et al. report that lamellar MD and spherulites do not co-exist when the material crystallizes from the melt which is separated in lamellar MDs. In other words, in this particular case, breakout or confined crystallization within lamellar MDs depends on the crystallization conditions. 

Computer simulations of a range of properties of block copolymer micelles have been performed by Mattice and co-workers.These simulations have been based on bead models for copolymer chains on a cubic lattice. Types of allowed moves for bead chains are illustrated in Fig. 3.27. The formation of micelles by diblock copolymers under weak segregation conditions was simulated with pairwise interactions between A and B beads and between the A bead and vacant sites occupied by solvent, S (Wang et al. 19936). This leads to the formation of micelles with a B core. The cmc was found to depend strongly on fVB and % = x.w = %AS. In the range 3 < (xlz)N < 6, where z is the lattice constant, the cmc was found to be exponentially dependent onIt was found than in the micelles the insoluble block is slightly collapsed, and that the soluble block becomes stretched as Na increases, with [Pg.178]

A mean field approach was applied to determine homopolymer distributions in the lamellar phase of a blend of AB diblock and A homopolymer by Shull and Winey (1992). In the strong segregation limit, complete segregation of the A homopolymer into the A microdomain was predicted. Furthermore, in this limit, the diblocks were treated as brushes , wetted by homopolymer in the A domain. Composition profiles showing the distribution of homopolymer and copolymer were determined by numerical solution of the self-consistent field equations. 

In this review, we introduce another approach to study the multiscale structures of polymer materials based on a lattice model. We first show the development of a Helmholtz energy model of mixing for polymers based on close-packed lattice model by combining molecular simulation with statistical mechanics. Then, holes are introduced to account for the effect of pressure. Combined with WDA, this model of Helmholtz energy is further applied to develop a new lattice DFT to calculate the adsorption of polymers at solid-liquid interface. Finally, we develop a framework based on the strong segregation limit (SSL) theory to predict the morphologies of micro-phase separation of diblock copolymers confined in curved surfaces. 

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