Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 8: Thin Film Properties II

DS 8.6: Talk

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 11:00–11:15, A 060

Stability and Elasticity of Ultrathin Sphere-Patterned Block Copolymer Films — •Le Qiao¹, Daniel A. Vega², and Friederike Schmid¹ — ¹Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, D55099 Mainz, Germany — ²Instituto de Física del Sur (IFISUR), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad Nacional del Sur, 8000 Bahía Blanca, Argentina

Sphere-patterned ultrathin block copolymers films are potentially interesting for a variety of applications in nanotechnology. We use self-consistent field theory to investigate the elastic response of sphere monolayer films with respect to in-plane shear, in-plane extension and compression deformations, and with respect to bending. The relations between the in-plane elastic moduli is roughly compatible with the expectations for two-dimensional elastic systems with hexagonal symmetry, with one notable exception: The pure shear and the simple shear moduli differ from each other by roughly 20%. Even more importantly, the bending constants are found to be negative, indicating that free-standing block copolymer membranes made of only sphere monolayer are inherently unstable. Our results are discussed in view of experimental findings.

Keywords: thin film; elasticity; block copolymer; self-assemble; bending