Achievement

Nanostructured soft materials from self-assembled block copolymers (BCP)s and polymer blends can enable the reliable, high-throughput, and cost-effective generation of nanoscale structural motifs for many emerging technologies. These interfacial manipulations can be synthetic alterations that are directly incorporated into the BCP chain to modify polymer−polymer interactions, post-polymerization and non-syntheticmodifications that affect block interactions, or changes to the polymer specimen’s external surroundings to control self- assembly in a confining environment. Herein, we describe methods that we have employed to manipulate BCP self-assembly for various application targets, and we discuss the key effects of such manipulations on the resulting nanoscale morphologies.

Mastroianni, S.; Epps, T. H., III, Langmuir 2013, 29, 3864−3878. Interfacial Manipulations: Controlling Nanoscale Assembly in Bulk, Thin Film, and Solution Block Copolymer Systems. (Front Cover Article)