Electric-field-induced lamellar to hexagonally perforated lamellar transition in diblock copolymer thin films: Kinetic pathways

Arnab Mukherjee, Kumar Ankit, Andreas Reiter, Michael Selzer, Britta Nestler

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Symmetric block-copolymers, hitherto, are well known to evolve into parallel, perpendicular and mixed lamellar morphologies under the concomitant influence of an electric field and substrate affinity. In the present work, we show that an additional imposed confinement can effectuate a novel parallel lamellar to hexagonally perforated lamellar (HPL) transition in monolayer and bilayer films. Three dimensional numerical studies are performed using the Ohta-Kawasaki functional, complemented with an exact solution of Maxwell's equation. HPL is shown to stabilize at large substrate affinity in a narrow region of the phase diagram between parallel and perpendicular lamellar transitions in ultra-thin films. Additionally, we also identify perforated lamellae as intermediate structures during parallel-to-perpendicular lamellar transition. A systematic analysis using Minkowski functionals yields deeper insights into the associated kinetic pathways.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)25609-25620
Number of pages12
JournalPhysical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Volume18
Issue number36
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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