Phase behaviors of cyclic diblock copolymers.

A spectral method of self-consistent field theory has been applied to AB cyclic block copolymers. Phase behaviors of cyclic diblock copolymers, such as order-disorder transition, order-order transition, and domain spacing size, have been studied, showing good consistency with previous experimental and theoretical results. Compared to linear diblocks, cyclic diblocks are harder to phase separate due to the topological constraint of the ring structure. A direct disorder-to-cylinder transition window is observed in the phase diagram, which is significantly different from the mean field phase diagram of linear diblock copolymers. The domain spacing size ratio between cyclic and linear diblock copolymers is typically close to 0.707, indicating in segregation that the cyclic polymer can be considered to be made up of linear diblocks with half of the original chain length.