The multicontinuous network nature of polymer nanostructures provides them with many opportunities to fabricate multifunctional materials with specific mechanical, transport, optical, and other novel properties. In this paper, we generate an effective design principle to craft a series of multicontinuous network structures with controllable channels, including multicontinuous gyroid and network morphologies via the self-assembly of ABC-type block copolymers. Importantly, we achieve a much wider (∼25%) compositional range than that of AB diblock copolymers (∼3%), which would increase the widespread application of these multicontinuous polymer networks. Even for the simplest ABC linear system, this method is valid for generating multicontinuous network structures, where gyroids and are found to possess large phase regions. This finding can theoretically explain the experimental observation of gyroid and phases. We believe that our proposed design principle along with the calculated phase diagram provides a compelling panacea for the fabrication of multicontinuous 3D network nanostructures.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c02017 | DOI Listing |
J Am Chem Soc
April 2022
Shaanxi International Research Center for Soft Matter, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, P. R. China.
Bicontinuous and multicontinuous network phases are among nature's most complex structures in soft matter systems. Here, a chiral bicontinuous tetragonal phase is reported as a new stable liquid crystalline intermediate phase at the transition between two cubic phases, the achiral double gyroid and the chiral triple network cubic phase with an 23 space group, both formed by dynamic networks of helices. The mirror symmetry of the double gyroid, representing a -structure of two enantiomorphic networks, is broken at the transition to this tetragonal phase by retaining uniform helicity only along one network while losing it along the other one.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLangmuir
May 2021
Faculty of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, China.
Aiming to increase the stability region of three-dimensional (3D) multi-continuous morphologies due to great potential application in smart sensors, gas separation membranes, and photonic materials, in this paper, we control the block ratio of different channels of an ABC triblock copolymer according to the curvature of these multi-continuous nanostructures. In the small A volume fraction region, the multi-continuous gyroid nanostructure is stable when / equals 1/3, while two-domain lamellae () and three-layer lamellae () are obtained when B and C blocks have comparable volume fractions, suggesting that changing the / ratio is an effective way of forming multi-continuous polymer network nanostructures. Interestingly, a large phase region of the core-shell gyroid and are found under the condition of / = 4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLangmuir
September 2020
Faculty of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211, China.
The multicontinuous network nature of polymer nanostructures provides them with many opportunities to fabricate multifunctional materials with specific mechanical, transport, optical, and other novel properties. In this paper, we generate an effective design principle to craft a series of multicontinuous network structures with controllable channels, including multicontinuous gyroid and network morphologies via the self-assembly of ABC-type block copolymers. Importantly, we achieve a much wider (∼25%) compositional range than that of AB diblock copolymers (∼3%), which would increase the widespread application of these multicontinuous polymer networks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2014
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Numerical simulations reveal a family of hierarchical and chiral multicontinuous network structures self-assembled from a melt blend of Y-shaped ABC and ABD three-miktoarm star terpolymers, constrained to have equal-sized A/B and C/D chains, respectively. The C and D majority domains within these patterns form a pair of chiral enantiomeric gyroid labyrinths (srs nets) over a broad range of compositions. The minority A and B components together define a hyperbolic film whose midsurface follows the gyroid minimal surface.
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