Novel Wormlike Nanostructures Self-Assembled in a Well Defined Liquid Crystalline Diblock Copolymer with Azobenzene Moieties

✍ Scribed by Haifeng Yu; Atsushi Shishido; Tomokazu Iyoda; Tomiki Ikeda

• Book ID: 102495334
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 226 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1336
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.200600901

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Novel wormlike nanostructures were self‐assembled in bulk films of a well defined diblock copolymer with azobenzene moieties, which was prepared by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). For comparison, a homopolymer with almost the same repeat units of azobenzene as those in the copolymer was also prepared. They both had well defined structures and exhibited a smectic liquid crystalline phase. Upon annealing the copolymer films, poly(methyl methacrylate) formed a matrix with excellent optical properties, and the azobenzene segment in the minority phase self‐assembled into a wormlike mesogenic domain in the bulk films. Such block copolymer films exhibited stability and transparency by eliminating the scattering of visible light, indicating their potential application as photoresponsive functional materials. Although wormlike morphologies have been obtained in micelles from block copolymer solutions, to the best of our knowledge, such wormlike nanostructures have never been explored in bulk films.

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