Interface structure annealing effects

An example of the annealing effect on the small angle X-ray diffraction peak of 4.8 ATb/10.5 AFe before and after annealing at 250 C for 5 hours is illustrated in fig. 8a and b. The peak intensity decreases because of the intermixing between Tb and Fe atoms at the interface boundaries however, the layered structure still exists. 

Thus in the ordered part of the phase diagram the effect of a surface or interface on a thin block copolymer film can be very dramatic. If the surface favours one or other component of the block, the film may become essentially completely ordered with lamellae parallel to the plane of the film. This has been confirmed both by dynamic SIMS (Russell et al. 1989) and by neutron reflectivity (Anastasiadis et al. 1989a, b) studies of annealed block copolymer Aims. Figure 6.30 shows this effect very clearly on annealing prominent Bragg peaks appear in the reflectivity, indicating that a multilayer structure has formed in the direction perpendicular to the interface, as discussed in section 3.1 (see in particular figures 3.6 and 3.7). 

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