Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement

Xing-Ye Li; Zheng Wang; Yu-Hua Yin; Run Jiang; Bao-Hui Li

doi:10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4

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Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2025-07-26

- Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 43, Issue 8, Pages: 1423-1432(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
- Author bio：
  
  baohui@nankai.edu.cn
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4
  CLC：
- Received：27 January 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-01-27，
  
  Accepted：24 March 2025，
  
  Online First：19 June 2025，
  
  Published：01 August 2025
- Accepted：
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Li, X. Y.; Wang, Z.; Yin, Y. H.; Jiang, R.; Li, B. H. interfacial frustration-induced novel self-assembled structures from block copolymers under Janus spherical confinement. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 1423–1432

Xing-Ye Li, Zheng Wang, Yu-Hua Yin, et al. Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(8): 1423-1432.
Li, X. Y.; Wang, Z.; Yin, Y. H.; Jiang, R.; Li, B. H. interfacial frustration-induced novel self-assembled structures from block copolymers under Janus spherical confinement. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 1423–1432 DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4.

Xing-Ye Li, Zheng Wang, Yu-Hua Yin, et al. Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(8): 1423-1432. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4.

摘要

We obtained interface frustration-induced nanoparticles with rich novel structures for diblock copolymers confined in a Janus spherical nanocavity

such as Janus concentric perforated lamella with holes distributed only near the equatorial plane or in parallel layers

as well as flower-like or branched structures. We explained the structure formation mechanisms.

Abstract

Spatial confinement of block copolymers can induce frustrations

which can further be utilized to regulate self-assembled structures

thus providing an efficient route for fabricating novel structures. We studied the self-assembly of AB di-block copolymers (di-BCPs) confined in Janus spherical nanocavities using simulations

and explained the structure formation mechanisms. In the case of a strongly selective cavity wall

all the lamella-forming

gyroid-forming

and cylinder-forming di-BCPs can form interfacial frustration-induced Janus concentric perforated lamellar nanoparticles

whose outermost is a Janus spherical shell and the internal is a sphere with concentric perforated lamellar structure. In particular

Janus concentric perforated lamellar nanoparticles with holes distributed only near the equatorial plane were obtained in both lamella-forming and gyroid-forming di-BCPs

directly reflecting the effect of interfacial frustration. The minority-block domain of the cylider-forming di-BCPs may form hemispherical perforated lamellar structures with holes distributed in parallel layers with a specific orientation. For symmetric di-BCPs

both the A and B domains in each nanoparticle are continuous

interchangeable

and have rotational symmetry. While for gyroid-forming and cylinder-forming di-BCPs

only the majority-block domains are continuous in each nanoparticle

and holes in the minority-block domains usually have rotational symmetry. In the case of a weakly selective cavity wall

the inhomogeneity of the cavity wall results in structures having a specific orientation (such as flower-like and branched structures in gyroid-forming and cylinder-forming di-BCPs) and a perforated wetting layer with uniformly distributed holes. The novel nanoparticles obtained may have potential applications in nanotechnology as functional nanostructures or nanoparticles.

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