Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 26: Nanostructures, Nanostructuring and Nanosized Soft Matter I
CPP 26.2: Talk
Wednesday, March 19, 2025, 12:00–12:15, H34
Infrared Scanning Near-Field Spectroscopic Insights into Self-Assembled Block Copolymer Nanostructures — •Nadine von Coelln1, Britta Weidinger2, Christian Huck1, Irene Wacker3, Ronald Curticean3, Rasmus R. Schröder3, Eva Blasco2, and Petra Tegeder1 — 1Institute for Physical Chemistry — 2IMSEAM — 3BioQuant, Heidelberg University, Germany
Block copolymers (BCPs) are known for their ability to self-assemble into a variety of morphologies on the nanometer scale. While the self-assembly of 2D thin films has been extensively investigated, less attention has been paid to 3D bulk morphologies. In this work, the internal nanostructure of long-range ordered 3D bulk morphologies of a well-defined diblock copolymer consisting of polystyrene and a methacrylate-based copolymer is studied by means of infrared scanning near-field optical microscopy (IR-SNOM). We demonstrate that by irradiation at an absorption band specific to one polymer block, it is possible to chemically image the blocks nano-ordered spatial arrangement [1]. Representative images were successfully correlated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) data. By altering the molar fraction of polymer blocks, a variety of nanostructures was imaged. For some polymer compositions, the nanostructure formed was observed to change upon post-functionalization. Additionally, nanotomography of the bulk material is approached by imaging and volume reconstruction of serial sections.
[1] B. Weidinger, N. von Coelln et al., Polym. Chem., 15 (2024) 4093-4100.
Keywords: Scanning Probe Microscopy; Infrared; Block Copolymer; Self-Assembly; Tomography