Formation of Multicontinuous 3D Network Nanostructures with Increased Complexity in ABC-Type Block Copolymers

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Multicontinuous polymer nanostructures offer potential for multifunctional materials.
• Previous methods using diblock copolymers had limited compositional ranges for creating these structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish an effective design principle for fabricating multicontinuous network structures.
• To achieve controllable channels and explore gyroid and O70 network morphologies.
• To expand the compositional range for creating these complex nanostructures.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the self-assembly of ABC-type block copolymers.
• Generated a series of multicontinuous network structures with controllable channels.
• Calculated phase diagrams for theoretical explanation and design validation.

Main Results:

• Successfully crafted multicontinuous gyroid and O70 network morphologies.
• Achieved a significantly wider compositional range (∼25%) compared to AB diblock copolymers (∼3%).
• Demonstrated the validity of the method even for simple ABC linear systems, revealing large phase regions for gyroid and O70.

Conclusions:

• The proposed design principle enables the fabrication of multicontinuous 3D network nanostructures with controllable channels.
• The findings provide a theoretical explanation for experimental observations of gyroid and O70 phases.
• This approach offers a versatile strategy for developing advanced polymer-based materials.