Highly Tunable Nanostructures in a Doubly pH‐Responsive Pentablock Terpolymer in Solution and in Thin Films

Multiblock copolymers with charged blocks are complex systems that show great potential for enhancing the structural control of block copolymers. A pentablock terpolymer PMMA-b-PDMAEMA-b-P2VP-b-PDMAEMA-b-PMMA is investigated. It contains two types midblocks, which weak cationic polyelectrolytes, namely poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) and poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP). Furthermore, these end-capped short hydrophobic poly(methyl (PMMA) in dilute aqueous solution thin films. The self-assembly behavior depends on degrees ionization α P2VP PDMAEMA blocks, altered a wide range by varying pH value. High both prevent structure formation, whereas microphase-separated nanostructures form partially uncharged state. While solutions, nanostructure formation governed dependence solubility flexibility α, films, segregation strength key. state plays crucial role film during spin-coating. Overall, mixing 3 sequence, governing bridging behavior, result strong variations their repeat distances.