Kinetically Enhanced Approach for Rapid and Tunable Self-Assembly of Rod-Coil Block Copolymers.

A facile approach is reported to process rod-coil block copolymers (BCPs) into highly ordered nanostructures in a rapid, low-energy process. By introducing a selective plasticizer into the rod-coil BCPs during annealing, both the annealing temperature and time to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium and highly ordered structures can be decreased. This process improvement is attributed to enhanced chain mobility, reduced rod-rod interaction, and decreased rod-coil interaction from the additive. The novel method is based on kinetically facilitating thermodynamic equilibrium. The process requires no modification of polymer structure, indicating that a wide variety of desired polymer functionalities can be designed into BCPs for specific applications.