Morphological control via chemical and shear forces in block copolymer self-assembly in the lab-on-chip

We investigate the effects of variation in chemical conditions (solvent composition, water content, polymer concentration, and added salt) on the morphologies formed by PS-b-PAA in DMF/dioxane/water mixtures in a two-phase gas-liquid segmented microfluidic reactor. The differences in morphologies between off-chip and on-chip self-assembly and on-chip morphological trends for different chemical conditions are explained by the interplay of top-down shear effects (coalescence and breakup) and bottom-up chemical forces. Using off-chip morphology results, we construct a water content-solvent composition phase diagram showing disordered, sphere, cylinder, and vesicle regions. On-chip morphologies are found to deviate from off-chip morphologies by three identified shear-induced paths: 1) sphere-to-cylinder, and 2) sphere-to-vesicle transitions, both via shear-induced coalescence when initial micelle sizes are small, and 3) cylinder-to-sphere transitions via shear-induced breakup when initial micelle sizes are large (high capillary number conditions). These pathways contribute to the generation of large extended bilayer aggregates uniquely on-chip, at either increased polymer or salt concentrations. Collectively these results demonstrate the broad utility of top-down directed molecular self-assembly in conjunction with chemical forces to control morphology and size of polymer colloids at the nanoscale.