Manipulating Nanoscale Ordering in Block Copolymer Thin Films

Block copolymers permit the controlled fabrication of nanoscale materials for membrane and templating applications.  To enable the increased utilization of copolymer systems in commercial devices, additional understanding of the influence of interfacial interactions on the self-assembly of thin film block copolymers is necessary.  Two areas of recent block copolymer thin film research in our group involve: (1) the high-throughput manipulation of substrate surface interactions in block copolymer films using chlorosilane monolayers and monolayer gradients, and (2) the localized generation of nanoscale orientations in block copolymer thin films using focused solvent vapor annealing.  These investigations provide new insights into our ability to control nanoscale structure and morphology orientation in block copolymer thin films.