Title
Close-Packed Spherical Morphology in an ABA Triblock Copolymer Aligned with Large-Amplitude Oscillatory Shear
Date Issued
12 July 2016
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Wang S.
Xie R.
Vajjala Kesava S.
Cochran E.W.
Robertson M.L.
University Park
Publisher(s)
American Chemical Society
Abstract
A microphase-separated poly(styrene-b-(lauryl-co-stearyl acrylate)-b-styrene) (SAS) triblock copolymer exhibiting a disordered spherical microstructure with randomly oriented grains was aligned through the application of large-amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS) at a temperature below the order-disorder transition temperature of the triblock copolymer, yet above the glass transition temperature of the polystyrene spherical domains. The thermoplastic elastomeric behavior of the SAS triblock copolymer provided a convenient means to observe the aligned morphology. Following application of LAOS, the specimen was quenched to room temperature (below the glass transition temperature of polystyrene), and small-angle X-ray scattering data were obtained in the three principal shear directions: shear gradient, velocity, and vorticity directions. The analysis revealed that the SAS triblock copolymer formed coexisting face-centered cubic and hexagonally close-packed spherical microstructures. The presence of a close-packed microstructure is in stark contrast to an extensive body of literature on sphere-forming bulk block copolymers that favor body-centered cubic systems under quiescent conditions and under shear. The aligned microstructure observed in this bulk block copolymer was reminiscent of that observed in various spherical soft material systems such as colloidal spheres, sphere-forming block copolymer solutions, and star polymer solutions. The highly unanticipated observation of close-packed spherical microstructures in a neat block copolymer under shear is hypothesized to originate from the dispersity of the block copolymer.
Start page
4875
End page
4888
Volume
49
Issue
13
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ingeniería de materiales
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84978402795
Source
Macromolecules
ISSN of the container
0024-9297
Sponsor(s)
National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-1040446. We thank the NIST Center for Neutron Research for access to Igor routines used in 1D SAXS data analysis. We appreciate the assistance of Wenyue Ding in obtaining SAXS data following annealing of the unaligned sample. The authors appreciate the assistance of Dr. Charles Anderson for access and training in the University of Houston Department of Chemistry Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility. We thank Ramanan Krishnamoorti, Julia Kornfield, and Karen Winey for helpful discussio s. S.W. and M.L.R. acknowledge financial support by the National Science Foundation through Grant DMR-1351788. R.X., S.V.K., and E.D.G. acknowledge financial support by the National Science Foundation through Grant DMR-1056199. E.W.C. acknowledges support by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Grant 2014-38202-22318).
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus