Wang Rong, Jiang Zhibin, Chen Yeng-Long, Xue Gi
Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People's Republic of China.
J Phys Chem B. 2006 Nov 16;110(45):22726-31. doi: 10.1021/jp064268+.
Surface-induced phase transition of asymmetric diblock copolymer in selective solvents is first theoretically investigated by using the real-space version of self-consistent field theory (SCFT). By varying the distance between two parallel hard surfaces (or the film thickness) W and the block copolymer concentration f(p), several morphologies are predicted and the phase diagram is constructed. Self-assembly morphologies of the diblock copolymer in dilute solution are found to change significantly with different film thickness. In confined systems, stable morphologies found in the bulk solution become unstable due to the loss of polymer conformation entropy. We find that in a very dilute block copolymer solution, phase separation can be induced through polymer depletion as the solution becomes more confined. Our findings provide an interesting starting point for a renewed effort in both experimental and theoretical investigations of confined block copolymer solutions.
首次运用自洽场理论（SCFT）的实空间版本从理论上研究了选择性溶剂中不对称二嵌段共聚物的表面诱导相变。通过改变两个平行硬表面之间的距离（或膜厚度）W以及嵌段共聚物浓度f(p)，预测了几种形态并构建了相图。发现稀溶液中二嵌段共聚物的自组装形态会随不同的膜厚度而显著变化。在受限体系中，本体溶液中发现的稳定形态由于聚合物构象熵的损失而变得不稳定。我们发现，在非常稀的嵌段共聚物溶液中，随着溶液变得更加受限，聚合物耗尽可诱导相分离。我们的研究结果为受限嵌段共聚物溶液的实验和理论研究重新展开提供了一个有趣的起点。
