Microphase separation of double-grafted copolymers (centipedes) with gradient, random, and regular sequence of the branch points

Vladimir V Palyulin; Igor I Potemkin

doi:10.1063/1.2768058

Microphase separation of double-grafted copolymers (centipedes) with gradient, random, and regular sequence of the branch points

J Chem Phys. 2007 Sep 28;127(12):124903. doi: 10.1063/1.2768058.

Authors

Vladimir V Palyulin¹, Igor I Potemkin

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, Moscow State University, Moscow 119992, Russian Federation.

PMID: 17902933
DOI: 10.1063/1.2768058

Abstract

We propose a theory of microphase separation of the double-grafted copolymer melts with different types of branch point distribution. It is shown that copolymers with gradient sequence of the branch points form a microstructure easier (at smaller values of the Flory-Huggins parameters) than equivalent copolymers with random or regular sequences. Two characteristic types of the microphase separation, "diblock-" and "comblike" are predicted. Due to the existence of the two characteristic length scales (the length of the backbone and the length of the side chains), the two-scale switching is possible.