POS1-0152
Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly in Liquid Crystal Solvents: Toward Aligned Polymer Nanoobjects
When and Where
Nov 30, -0001
12:00am - 12:00am
Presenter(s)
Seungmin Lee (KAIST)
Co-Author(s)
Abstract
Polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) enables the in situ self-assembly of amphiphilic diblock copolymers during their synthesis, allowing block copolymer nanoobjects at high solids content in a one-step process. However, the nanoobjects obtained from conventional PISA typically favor highly symmetric morphologies, such as spheres, cylinders, and vesicles, with isotropic orientations. Therefore, introducing anisotropy into the nanoobjects and aligning them along a desired direction requires a new design of polymerization mixtures that can support anisotropic nanoobject growth and enable orientation control in response to external stimuli.
To address this challenge, we develop PISA in liquid crystalline (LC) molecules as a polymerization solvent, taking advantage of their intrinsic ability to self-organize in the liquid state and align under external fields such as electric fields. In the LC-PISA strategy, we perform polymerization in the isotropic phase at high temperatures to produce nanoobjects following the conventional PISA mechanism but avoiding macroscopic phase separation. After complete monomer consumption, subsequent cooling allows the polymerization mixture to enter the target LC phase, directing the alignment of the nanoobjects. The molecular design of the polymerization components, phase transitions involved in the LC-PISA process, and the morphological and optical characteristics of the obtained nanoobjects will be discussed in detail.
To address this challenge, we develop PISA in liquid crystalline (LC) molecules as a polymerization solvent, taking advantage of their intrinsic ability to self-organize in the liquid state and align under external fields such as electric fields. In the LC-PISA strategy, we perform polymerization in the isotropic phase at high temperatures to produce nanoobjects following the conventional PISA mechanism but avoiding macroscopic phase separation. After complete monomer consumption, subsequent cooling allows the polymerization mixture to enter the target LC phase, directing the alignment of the nanoobjects. The molecular design of the polymerization components, phase transitions involved in the LC-PISA process, and the morphological and optical characteristics of the obtained nanoobjects will be discussed in detail.
