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Atomically Traceable Nanostructure Fabrication
Published on: July 17, 2015
Exploring the Self-Assembly Capabilities of ABA-Type SBS, SIS, and Their Analogous Hydrogenated Copolymers onto
Nikolaos Politakos1,2, Galder Kortaberria3
1POLYMAT and Departamento de Química Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Joxe Mari Korta Center, Avda. Tolosa 72, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain. nikolaos.politakos@ehu.eus.
Abstract:
In this work, the self-assembled morphologies obtained for poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) (SBS) and poly(styrene-b-isoprene-b-styrene) (SIS) ABA-type copolymers were investigated before and after hydrogenation of the polydiene block, which led to poly(styrene-b-ethylene)/poly(ethylene-b-styrene) (SEES) and poly(styrene-b-ethylene)/poly(propylene-b-styrene) (SEPS) copolymers, respectively. The evaluation of different morphologies was carried out using atomic force microscopy (AFM), analyzing the effect of various parameters such as the solvent and polymer concentrations employed for film casting (toluene, cyclohexane, or tetrahydrofurane with concentrations of 1 and 3 wt%), together with that of the annealing treatment (thermal annealing at room temperature, and 60, 80, and 100 °C). The effect of these parameters in combination with the chemical nature of the polydiene block led to different morphologies with different topographic aspects affecting the roughness (Ra) of the film.
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