Controlling diblock co-polymer morphologies via selective solvent annealing

DOI

Diblock co-polymers consist of two polymer chains with different chemical properties tied together at a central linking block. The interactions between the two blocks result in a rich phase diagram of morphologies (micelles, fibrils, lamellae, hexagonal rollers). We are investigating the possibility of using this flexible morphological control to orientate inorganic nano-particles embedded in the polymer matrix. This technique could benefit applications where particle orientation is critical for a composite's function, e.g. in thin-film photovoltaic devices, where absorber particle orientation perpendicular to the substrate improves efficiency by eliminating grain boundaries which hinder the transport of charge carriers. In this project, we use morphological control by selective solvent vapour annealing using solvents that interact preferentially with one or the other block.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.63526279
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/63526279
Provenance
Creator Dr Rudi Winter; Mr Nathan Davies; Mr Daniel White; Dr Sarah Rogers
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2018
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Photon- and Neutron Geosciences
Temporal Coverage Begin 2015-10-01T08:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2015-10-04T08:00:00Z