Nanoparticle‐Driven Orientation Transition and Soft‐Shear Alignment in Diblock Copolymer Films via Dynamic Thermal Gradient Field

Abstract

Sharp dynamic thermal gradient (∇T ≈ 45 °C mm−1) field‐driven assembly of cylinder‐forming block copolymer (c‐BCP) films filled with PS‐coated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs; dNP ≈ 3.6 nm, φNP ≈ 0–0.1) is studied. The influence of increasing AuNP loading fraction on dispersion and assembly of AuNPs within c‐BCP (PS‐PMMA) films is investigated via both static and dynamic thermal gradient fields. With φNP increasing, a sharp transition from vertical to random in‐plane horizontal cylinder orientation is observed due to enrichment of AuNPs at the substrate side and favorable interaction of PMMA chains with gold cores. Furthermore, a detachable capping elastomer layer can self‐align these random oriented PMMA microdomains into unidirectional hybrid AuNP/c‐BCP nanolines, quantified with an alignment order parameter, S. image

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Sep 16, 2013
Source ID
10.1002/marc.201300485

Entities

People

  • Alamgir Karim
  • Alei Dang
  • Bulent Akgun
  • Gurpreet Singh
  • Lu Dai
  • Michael R Bockstaller
  • Ren Zhang
  • Sushil Satija

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Boğaziçi University
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY)
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • National Science Foundation
  • University of Akron
  • University of Maryland

Tags

Readers

  • Nanoscale Plasmonic Nanotechnology
  • Polymer Science and Technology
  • Quantum spin resonance or Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene