On the self-assembly of brush block copolymers in thin films

We describe a simple route to fabricate two dimensionally well-ordered, periodic nanopatterns using the self-assembly of brush block copolymers (brush BCPs). Well-developed lamellar microdomains oriented perpendicular to the substrate are achieved, without modification of the underlying substrates, and structures with feature sizes greater than 200 nm are generated due to the reduced degree of chain entanglements of brush BCPs. A near-perfect linear scaling law was found for the period, L, as a function of backbone degree of polymerization (DP) for two series of brush BCPs. The exponent increases slightly from 0.99 to 1.03 as the side chain molecular weight increases from ∼2.4 to ∼4.5 kg/mol^-1 and saturated with further increase in the side chain molecular weight due to the entropic penalty associated with the packing of the side chains. Porous templates and scaffolds from brush BCP thin films are also obtained by selective etching of one component.