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Title: Fabrication of 2D Block Copolymer Brushes via a Polymer‐Single‐Crystal‐Assisted‐Grafting‐to Method
Block copolymer brushes are of great interest due to their rich phase behavior and value-added properties compared to homopolymer brushes. Traditional synthesis involves grafting-to and grafting-from methods. In this work, a recently developed “polymer-single-crystal-assisted-grafting-to” method is applied for the preparation of block copolymer brushes on flat glass surfaces. Triblock copolymer poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(L-lactide)-b-poly(3-(triethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate) (PEO-b-PLLA-b-PTESPMA) was synthesized with PLLA as the brush morphology-directing component and PTESPMA as the anchoring block. PEO-b-PLLA block copolymer brushes are obtained by chemical grafting of the triblock copolymer single crystals onto a glass surface. The tethering point and overall brush pattern are determined by the single crystal morphology. The grafting density is calculated to be ~ 0.36 nm-2 from the atomic force microscopy results and is consistent with the theoretic calculation based on the PLLA crystalline lattice. This work provides a new strategy to synthesize well-defined block copolymer brushes.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1709663 1709119
PAR ID:
10175805
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Macromolecular Rapid Communications
ISSN:
1022-1336
Page Range / eLocation ID:
2000228
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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