School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials of the Ministry of Education, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China.
Langmuir. 2011 Sep 20;27(18):11683-9. doi: 10.1021/la202448c. Epub 2011 Aug 25.
The self-assembly of diblock copolymers under soft confinement is studied systematically using a simulated annealing method applied to a lattice model of polymers. The soft confinement is realized by the formation of polymer droplets in a poor solvent environment. Multiple sequences of soft confinement-induced copolymer aggregates with different shapes and self-assembled internal morphologies are predicted as functions of solvent-polymer interaction and the monomer concentration. It is discovered that the self-assembled internal morphology of the aggregates is largely controlled by a competition between the bulk morphology of the copolymer and the solvent-polymer interaction, and the shape of the aggregates can be non-spherical when the internal morphology is anisotropic and the solvent-polymer interaction is weak. These results demonstrate that droplets of diblock copolymers formed in poor solvents can be used as a model system to study the self-assembly of copolymers under soft confinement.
使用模拟退火方法对聚合物的晶格模型进行系统研究，研究软受限下嵌段共聚物的自组装。软受限通过在不良溶剂环境中形成聚合物液滴来实现。作为溶剂-聚合物相互作用和单体浓度的函数，预测了具有不同形状和自组装内部形态的多种序列的软受限诱导共聚物聚集体。发现聚集体的自组装内部形态主要由共聚物的体相形态和溶剂-聚合物相互作用之间的竞争控制，并且当内部形态各向异性且溶剂-聚合物相互作用较弱时，聚集体的形状可以是非球形的。这些结果表明，在不良溶剂中形成的嵌段共聚物液滴可用作模型系统来研究软受限下共聚物的自组装。
