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Block copolymers

Spontaneous assembly of hierarchical phases

Nature Nanotechnology volume 18, pages 223–224 (2023)Cite this article

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The self-assembly of a triblock bottlebrush polymer at one length scale controls the ordering of the self-assembly at a smaller scale, forming a hierarchical unit cell.

The grand promise of self-assembly is the creation of target nanostructures through spontaneous molecular organization, a process that is — in principle — simpler and more scalable than laborious top-down nanofabrication methods1. Yet self-assembly faces a fundamental challenge: the structures that form thermodynamically tend to minimize surface area and maximize symmetry; the most readily-accessible structures are thus quite simple. Block copolymer (BCP) self-assembly, for example, takes advantage of the chemical incompatibility along a polymer backbone to drive local phase separation; frustrated assembly leads to a nanoscale morphology whose unit cell is dictated by chain architecture2. Canonical BCPs (linear chains with two blocks) form alternating lamellae and hexagonally-packed cylinders in a straightforward manner; but more exotic phases require additional control, for example directing the assembly using external forces, such as shear or chemical templates3. An elegant alternative is to use synthetic methods to design more sophisticated chain architectures, which may give rise to new morphologies4. An outstanding challenge is to achieve morphological control without undue synthetic burden. Sun et al. now report in Nature Nanotechnology the design and synthesis of novel triblock copolymers that give rise to structural order at multiple length scales, thereby forming complex and hierarchical nanoscale phases5.

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Fig. 1: Chain architecture for hierarchical morphologies.

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  1. Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Kevin G. Yager

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  1. Kevin G. Yager
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Correspondence to Kevin G. Yager.

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Yager, K.G. Spontaneous assembly of hierarchical phases. Nat. Nanotechnol. 18, 223–224 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01294-y

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