Self-assembly of coil-liquid crystal (LC) diblocks in LC solvent: Hierarchies of anisotropies

Abstract

Spontaneous anisotropy in the local chain conformation of Side-Group Liq. Cryst. Polymers (SGLCPs) drives the formation of anisotropic self-assembled microstructures of diblock copolymers consisting of an SGLCP block and a random coil block when dissolved in a small mol. LC, as obsd. by SANS and TEM. A phys.-inspired, segment-based model allows us to predict scattering profiles for different proposed arrangements of the block copolymers within the microstructure. Predicted scattering patterns, spanning the range from the overall assembly (>100nm) to the intrachain scale (5-100nm), are compared with the obsd. scattering profiles to discriminate between different possible self-assembled structures.

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