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
- Interfacial Frustration-induced Novel Self-assembled Structures from Block Copolymers under Janus Spherical Confinement
- 高分子科学（英文） 2025年43卷第8期页码：1423-1432
- 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：
  
  This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 22173051, 21829301, and 21774066), College Discipline Innovation and Intelligence Introduction Program (111 Project (B16027), the International Cooperation Base (2016D01025), Tianjin International Joint Research and Development Center).;Electronic supplementary information (ESI) is available free of charge in the online version of this article at http://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4.
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3344-4
  中图分类号：
- 收稿：2025-01-27，
  
  修回：2025-01-27，
  
  录用：2025-03-24，
  
  网络首发：2025-06-19，
  
  纸质出版：2025-08-01
- 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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