Dissipative particle dynamics study of solvent mediated transitions in pores decorated with tethered polymer brushes in the form of stripes

TL;DR

This study uses dissipative particle dynamics to explore how solvent conditions influence the self-assembly and morphology transitions of binary mixtures confined in striped polymer brush-modified pores.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of solvent-mediated morphological transitions in confined polymer mixtures with striped tethered brushes, highlighting the effects of dimensionality reduction.

Findings

Identification of solvent-mediated lamellar, meander, and in-lined cylinder phases.

Demonstration of quasi-one- and two-dimensional demixing due to pore geometry.

Quantitative analysis of morphology structure using overlap integrals and gyration tensors.

Abstract

We study self-assembly of a binary mixture of components A and B confined in a slit-like pore with the walls modified by the stripes of tethered brushes made of beads of a sort A. The emphasis is on solvent mediated transitions between morphologies when the composition of the mixture varies. For certain limiting cases of the pore geometry we found that an effective reduction of the dimensionality may lead to a quasi one- and two-dimensional demixing. The change of the environment for the chains upon changing the composition of the mixture from polymer melt to a good solvent conditions provides explanation for the mechanism of development of several solvent mediated morphologies and, in some cases, for switching between them. We found solvent mediated lamellar, meander and in-lined cylinder phases. Quantitative analysis of morphology structure is performed considering brush overlap integrals and gyration tensor components.