Phase behavior of symmetric linear multiblock copolymers

Author(s)
Panagiotis Theodorakis, Nikolaos G. Fytas
Abstract

Molecular-dynamics simulations are used to study the phase behavior of a single linear multiblock copolymer with blocks of A- and B-type monomers under poor solvent conditions, varying the block length N, number of blocks n, and the solvent quality (by variation of the temperature T). The fraction f of A-type monomers is kept constant and equal to 0.5, and always the lengths of A and B blocks are equal (N-A = N-B = N), as well as the number of blocks (n(A) = n(B)). We identify the three following regimes where: i) full microphase separation between blocks of different type occurs (all blocks of A-type monomers form a single cluster, while all blocks of B-type monomers form another); ii) full microphase separation is observed with a certain probability; and iii) full microphase separation cannot take place. For a very high number of blocks n and very high N (not accessible to our simulations) further investigation is needed

Organisation(s)
Computational and Soft Matter Physics
External organisation(s)
University of Patras
Journal
Europhysics Letters
Volume
93
No. of pages
5
ISSN
0295-5075
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/93/43001
Publication date
2011
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103036 Theoretical physics
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/9f606b75-22d0-48ad-95d7-a5e46c17ff1d