Student Posters Repository

The most fascinating property of diblock copolymers (DBCP) is their ability to self-assemble into a wide range of ordered structures. In the simplest case, DBCPs can assemble into two distinct spherical phases, the familiar body-centered and face-centered cubic phases. The situation changes upon introducing conformational asymmetry, in which the statistical length of the two monomer types can differ. Experimental and theoretical studies have found the emergence of complex spherical structures, the Frank-Kasper (FK) phases, in conformationally asymmetric DBCPs. Recent experimental work confirms that conformational asymmetry is a key factor to realizing the FK phases. However, the observed differences between experimental and theoretical results suggest that alongside conformational asymmetry, other mechanisms may play a role in the formation of these intricate structures. One candidate is polydispersity, a measure of how uniform the polymer chain lengths are. Using the self-consistent field theory, we examine how polydispersity affects the relative stability of the FK phases in conformationally asymmetric DBCPs. From the study, we find that the formation of the FK phases depends on the functional form of the chain length distribution.