Behavior of Block Copolymers in Thin Films

Abstract

The uses of polymeric materials in today's world are vast. Polymers are finding applications in the microelectronics industry as dielectric insulators and photoresists, in the aerospace and automobile industry as lightweight substitutes for metals, and in biotechnology as replacement components for bone, heart, and other organs. These are just a few of the many end uses of polymers.Often, a polymer may have a particular, desirable property but processing of the polymer is difficult or the polymer's surface characteristics are undesirable. To circumvent such shortcomings there are several options. The first is to synthesize a new material, which is quite costly and time consuming. Alternatively, two polymers with complimentary properties can be mixed. Unfortunately, most polymer pairs are immiscible unless there are specific interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonding) between the two components. Consequently, coarse phase separation is often observed, leading to an ill-defined material. Finally, two chemically distinct homopolymers can be joined together at one point, forming a block copolymer. While phase separation may occur, the scale of the domains is restricted to the sizes of the individual homopolymers, which is typically on the tens of nanometers scale. The added advantage of this approach is that the size of the different blocks can be altered, varying the concentration of the different components. For copolymers that “microphase” separate, this variation in composition leads to a variation of the morphology of the microdomains ranging from spherical to cylindrical to lamellar.