Structure property relations in glassy-semicrystalline block copolymers

The ability of block copolymers to segregate into nanoscale morphologies makes them a versatile class of engineering materials. This work investigates the relation between the block copolymer structure and its mechanical properties, film dynamics and diffusion kinetics.; The first part investigates the influence of structure on the mechanical properties of poly(cyclohexylethylene)-poly(ethylene) (PCHE-PE) block copolymer films. For lamellar block copolymers the mechanical properties depend significantly on the chain architecture (diblock, triblock and pentablock). Diblock copolymer films show complete failure at small strains and pentablock copolymer films show the toughest, response. Moreover, the orientation of the cylinders in a cylinder forming pentablock copolymer affects the toughness of the block copolymer films.; In the second part, the effect of surface energy and chain architecture on the orientation of microdomains in the same block copolymer films is investigated. Cylindrical and lamellar triblock copolymers with a PE midblock orient their microdomains normal to the surface. However, a lamellar diblock copolymer prefers a parallel orientation of the sheets with an E surface. Moreover, a cylindrical triblock copolymer with a reduced surface energy poly(ethylene-butylene) midblock orders with the cylinder domains oriented parallel to the surface. Self-consistent field theory calculations suggest that the entropic cost of forming a wetting layer comprised entirely of looping blocks for the triblock architecture, a constraint absent in diblock copolymers, stabilizes the perpendicular orientation. Thus in triblock copolymers, parallel orientations are only stabilized when the surface energy of the midblock is small enough to compensate for this conformational penalty.; Finally, a study of the diffusion kinetics of cylinder forming poly(styrene)-poly(ethylene) triblock (SES) and pentablock (SESES) copolymers suggests that for similar molecular weights SESES diffuses faster than SES at the same temperature. Moreover, a comparison of parallel and perpendicular diffusions in SESES demonstrates diffusion anisotropy. A depression in diffusion coefficients is reported relative to the diblock copolymer architecture. It is hypothesized that midblock looping in SES and SESES (which is absent in diblock copolymers) puts entropic constraints on favorable chain conformations for diffusion to be effective. Hence this depression is observed.