Self-assembly Behavior of Symmetrical Linear ABCA Tetrablock Copolymer: A Self-consistent Field Theory Study

Dan Liu; Ying-Ying Wang; Ying-Chun Sun; Yuan-Yuan Han; Jie Cui; Wei Jiang

doi:10.1007/s10118-018-2106-y

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Self-assembly Behavior of Symmetrical Linear ABCA Tetrablock Copolymer: A Self-consistent Field Theory Study

ARTICLE | Updated：2021-02-18

- Self-assembly Behavior of Symmetrical Linear ABCA Tetrablock Copolymer: A Self-consistent Field Theory Study
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 36, Issue 7, Pages: 888-896(2018)
- Affiliations：
  
  a.School of Physics, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
  b.State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China
  c.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Author bio：
  
  sunyc149@nenu.edu.cn (Y.C.S.)
  jcui@ciac.ac.cn (J.C.)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-018-2106-y
  CLC：
- Received：18 September 2017，
  
  Revised：2017-1-1，
  
  Accepted：26 December 2017，
  
  Online First：27 February 2018，
  
  Published：2018-07
- Accepted：
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Dan Liu, Ying-Ying Wang, Ying-Chun Sun, et al. Self-assembly Behavior of Symmetrical Linear ABCA Tetrablock Copolymer: A Self-consistent Field Theory Study[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2018, 36(7): 888-896.
DOI：

Dan Liu, Ying-Ying Wang, Ying-Chun Sun, et al. Self-assembly Behavior of Symmetrical Linear ABCA Tetrablock Copolymer: A Self-consistent Field Theory Study[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2018, 36(7): 888-896. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-018-2106-y.

摘要

Abstract

ABCA tetrablock copolymers offer new opportunities for design of materials with novel structures. Using real-space self-consistent field theory and simulation

we systematically examined the self-assembly behavior of linear ABCA tetrablock copolymers in a 2D space. The simulation was carried out under conditions of symmetrical compositions and interactions. We focus on the influence of chain length ratio of block A and interactions between block A and other blocks B and C on the self-assembly behavior of the copolymer system. The simulation results show that most of the structures self-assembled by the ABCA tetrablock copolymers are centrosymmetric

such as diblock-like lamella phase

two kinds of lamellae with beads at interface

two kinds of hierarchical lamella phase

hexagonal honeycomb-like phase

lamella phase with mixed BC and hexagonal spheres with mixed BC. Furthermore

we find that a novel noncentrosymmetric Janus spheres can be obtained when the interaction between blocks B and C is strong

whereas a noncentrosymmetric lamella phase was obtained at weak interaction between blocks B and C. Phase diagrams for the ABCA tetrablock copolymers with different interaction strength between blocks B and C are constructed by comparing free energies of candidate ordered structures. In addition

studies on the metastable behavior of the system reveal that enthalpy plays an important role in the metastable behavior of the ABCA tetrablock copolymer system. Our work can provide useful guide for structure control of such kind of tetrablock copolymers in experiments.

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references

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