Explosive dissolution and trapping of block copolymer seed crystallites

Enhanced control over crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) of coil-crystalline block copolymers has led to the formation of intricate structures with well-defined morphology and dimensions. While approaches to build those sophisticated structures may strongly differ from each other, they all...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2018-03, Vol.9 (1), p.1158-8, Article 1158
Main Authors: Guerin, Gerald, Rupar, Paul A., Manners, Ian, Winnik, Mitchell A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
147/143
639/638/298/923/1028
639/638/298/923/966
639/925/357/1016
Annealing
Block copolymers
Copolymers
Crystal structure
Crystallinity
Crystallites
Crystallization
Crystals
Dissolution
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Polymers
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Self-assembly
Trapping
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Summary:Enhanced control over crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) of coil-crystalline block copolymers has led to the formation of intricate structures with well-defined morphology and dimensions. While approaches to build those sophisticated structures may strongly differ from each other, they all share a key cornerstone: a polymer crystallite. Here we report a trapping technique that enables tracking of the change in length of one-dimensional (1D) polymer crystallites as they are annealed in solution at different temperatures. Using the similarities between 1D polymeric micelles and bottle-brush polymers, we developed a model explaining how the dissolving crystallites reach a critical size independent of the annealing temperature, and then explode in a cooperative process involving the remaining polymer chains of the crystallites. This model also allows us to demonstrate the role of the distribution in seed core crystallinity on the dissolution of the crystallites. The study of the dissolution of polymer crystals is a challenging task. Here the authors use crystallization-driven self-assembly of coil-crystalline block copolymers as a trapping technique to track the change in length of 1D seed crystallites during annealing.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-03528-x