Solvents, morphology development presence

Controlling the spontaneous formation of ordered domains in soft materials such as block copolymers [189] may lead to the development of stimuli-responsive materials for applications such as actuators [190] and photonics [191] due to the reversible nature of order formation. However, the stimuli that are typically used to control the morphology of block copolymers are e.g., temperature, pressure, solvent type and concentration... Pioneering work by Abbott and co-workers used the chemical oxidation approach to control the self-assembly of small-molecule amphiphiles containing ferrocene [192]. Rabin and co-workers have shown that the introduction of dissociated charges on one of the blocks of a diblock copolymer leads to stabilization of the disordered phase [193]. They also quantified the increase in x at the order-disorder transition (ODT), xodt, due to the entropic contribution of the dissociated counterions. The Flory-Huggins parameter,x, that is used to quantify interactions between polymer chains is assumed to be proportional to the difference in the polarizibility of the blocks [194]. The polarizibility of polyferrocenyldimethylsilane, which is larger than that of either polystyrene or polyisoprene [195], must increase upon oxidation due to the presence of the NO ions. 

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