Confined co-assembly of AB/BC diblock copolymer blends under 3D soft confinement.

Compared to synthesizing a new block copolymer, blending of two types of block copolymers or a block copolymer and a homopolymer is a simple yet effective approach to create new self-assembled nanostructures. Here, we apply Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to mimic the co-assembly of AB/BC diblock copolymer blends within a three-dimensional (3D) soft confined space, which corresponds to the co-assembly confined in an emulsion droplet in experiment. The confined co-assemblies of four types of block copolymer blends at different block ratios, i.e., A8B8/B8C8, A6B10/B10C6, A12B4/B4C12 and A12B4/B10C6, are investigated by MC simulations. The simulation results reveal that the ratio of different types of blocks and the polymer-solvent interactions between the different blocks and the solvent determine the final self-assembled nanostructures. By tailoring these two controlling parameters, we not only reproduced some classic nanostructures, i.e., pupa-, onion-, and bud-like particles, but also predicted some unconventional nanostructures, such as patch-, Janus-, peanut-, disc- and snowman-like particles via MC simulations.