Self Assembly Kinetics of Cylindrical-Phase Diblock Copolymer Thin Films

We have measured the time evolution of the self assembly process in perpendicular-oriented cylindrical-phase diblock copolymer thin films using statistical analysis of high resolution scanning electron microscope images. Within minutes of annealing above the polymer glass transition temperature, microphase separation between polymer blocks results in formation of uniform nanometer-scale domains whose relative position is initially largely uncorrelated. On further annealing, the cylindrical polymer domains organize into a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice whose characteristic grain size increases slowly with time (~t 1/4 ).

By: Charles Black, Kathryn Wilder Guarini

Published in: RC22700 in 2003

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