We demonstrate the directional alignment of perpendicular‐lamellae domains in fluorinated three‐armed star block polymer (BP) thin films using solvent vapor annealing with shear stress. The control of orientation and alignment was accomplished without any substrate surface modification. Additionally, three‐armed star poly(methyl methacrylate‐block‐styrene) [PMMA‐PS] and poly(octafluoropentyl methacrylate‐block‐styrene) were compared to their linear analogues to examine the impact of fluorine content and star architecture on self‐assembled BP feature sizes and interdomain density profiles. X‐ray reflectometry results indicated that the star BP molecular architecture increased the effective polymer segregation strength and could possibly facilitate reduced polymer domain spacings, which are useful in next‐generation nanolithographic applications. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys.
Mechanical properties including the failure behavior of physically assembled gels or physical gels are governed by their network structure. To investigate such behavior, we consider a physical gel system consisting of poly(styrene)‐poly(isoprene)‐poly(styrene)[PS‐PI‐PS] in mineral oil. In these gels, the endblock (PS) molecular weights are not significantly different, whereas, the midblock (PI) molecular weight has been varied such that we can access gels with and without midblock entanglement. Small angle X‐ray scattering data reveals that the gels are composed of collapsed PS aggregates connected by PI chains. The gelation temperature has been found to be a function of the endblock concentration. Tensile tests display stretch‐rate dependent modulus at high strain for the gels with midblock entanglement. Creep failure behavior has also been found to be influenced by the entanglement. Fracture experiments with predefined cracks show that the energy release rate scales linearly with the crack‐tip velocity for all gels considered here. In addition, increase of midblock chain length resulted in higher viscous dissipation leading to a higher energy release rate. The results provide an insight into how midblock entanglement can possibly affect the mechanical properties of physically assembled triblock copolymer gels in a midblock selective solvent. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys.
- Award ID(s):
- 1757220
- PAR ID:
- 10460581
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics
- Volume:
- 57
- Issue:
- 15
- ISSN:
- 0887-6266
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1014-1026
- Size(s):
- p. 1014-1026
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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