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Abstract
Directed self-assembly of block copolymers (BCPs) has attracted significant attention as a promising alternative method to the top-down approaches in the semi-conductor industry. BCP self-assemblies have the advantages of realizing small and regular microdomain size, having simple processing steps for the fabrication, and achieving various structures. Thus, they can be, applied to many industrial applications, such as nanostructured membranes for batteries, photovoltaics, photonics, and masks for lithography in bit-patterned media. While there have been intensive and extensive studies on the self-assembly of linear BCPs, less research has been conducted on the morphological behavior of miktoarm (star) polymers due to their complicated syntheses. This dissertation will study the morphological behavior of A2B and ABC type miktoarm polymers. The distinctive morphological behavior that arises from the chain architecture and various morphologies that have not been obtained in linear BCPs is demonstrated. Furthermore, the role of surface and interfacial effects on self-assembly of miktoarm polymers in thin films is investigated. We examine not only the morphological behavior of miktoarm polymers, but also the characterization tools that allow the microdomain structure for the three components to be analyzed. The use of selective deuteration and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) is essential to unambiguously identify the morphology of ABC miktoarm terpolymers. In the last section, the effects of inclusion of nanoparticles on the morphologies of miktoarm polymers are described.
Type
Dissertation
Date
2019-09
Publisher
Degree
Advisors
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/