Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy
© 2019, The Author(s). The directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs) has shown promise in fabricating customized two-dimensional (2D) geometries at the nano- and meso-scale. Here, we discover spontaneous symmetry breaking and superlattice formation in DSA of BCP. We observe the emergen...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135166 |
| _version_ | 1811083837266984960 |
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| author | Ding, Yi Gadelrab, Karim R Mizrahi Rodriguez, Katherine Huang, Hejin Ross, Caroline A Alexander-Katz, Alfredo |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Ding, Yi Gadelrab, Karim R Mizrahi Rodriguez, Katherine Huang, Hejin Ross, Caroline A Alexander-Katz, Alfredo |
| author_sort | Ding, Yi |
| collection | MIT |
| description | © 2019, The Author(s). The directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs) has shown promise in fabricating customized two-dimensional (2D) geometries at the nano- and meso-scale. Here, we discover spontaneous symmetry breaking and superlattice formation in DSA of BCP. We observe the emergence of low symmetry phases in high symmetry templates for BCPs that would otherwise not exhibit these phases in the bulk or thin films. The emergence phenomena are found to be a general behavior of BCP in various template layouts with square local geometry, such as 44 and 32434 Archimedean tilings and octagonal quasicrystals. To elucidate the origin of this phenomenon and confirm the stability of the emergent phases, we implement self-consistent field theory (SCFT) simulations and a strong-stretching theory (SST)-based analytical model. Our work demonstrates an emergent behavior of soft matter and draws an intriguing connection between 2-dimensional soft matter self-assembly at the mesoscale and inorganic epitaxy at the atomic scale. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:40:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135166 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:40:08Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1351662023-02-17T15:46:05Z Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy Ding, Yi Gadelrab, Karim R Mizrahi Rodriguez, Katherine Huang, Hejin Ross, Caroline A Alexander-Katz, Alfredo Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering © 2019, The Author(s). The directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs) has shown promise in fabricating customized two-dimensional (2D) geometries at the nano- and meso-scale. Here, we discover spontaneous symmetry breaking and superlattice formation in DSA of BCP. We observe the emergence of low symmetry phases in high symmetry templates for BCPs that would otherwise not exhibit these phases in the bulk or thin films. The emergence phenomena are found to be a general behavior of BCP in various template layouts with square local geometry, such as 44 and 32434 Archimedean tilings and octagonal quasicrystals. To elucidate the origin of this phenomenon and confirm the stability of the emergent phases, we implement self-consistent field theory (SCFT) simulations and a strong-stretching theory (SST)-based analytical model. Our work demonstrates an emergent behavior of soft matter and draws an intriguing connection between 2-dimensional soft matter self-assembly at the mesoscale and inorganic epitaxy at the atomic scale. 2021-10-27T20:11:03Z 2021-10-27T20:11:03Z 2019 2019-07-18T14:41:50Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135166 en 10.1038/s41467-019-10896-5 Nature Communications Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC Nature |
| spellingShingle | Ding, Yi Gadelrab, Karim R Mizrahi Rodriguez, Katherine Huang, Hejin Ross, Caroline A Alexander-Katz, Alfredo Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title | Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title_full | Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title_fullStr | Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title_short | Emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| title_sort | emergent symmetries in block copolymer epitaxy |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135166 |
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