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Targeted Design Of Co-Continuous Nanostructures In Copolymers, Di Zeng

Doctoral Dissertations

Microphase separated copolymers with nano-scale morphologies are critically important in designing next generation materials. Cocontinuous nanoscale structures, in which domains of multiple different phases each simultaneously percolate in three dimensions, provide opportunities to synergistically combine properties of the constituent polymers in a wide variety of contexts. While cocontinuous nanostructures are fabricated through equilibrium self-assembly of block or graft copolymers and kinetically trapped phase separation of polymer blends or crosslinked copolymer networks, their formation is highly sensitive to changes in chemical details, synthesis and/or processing conditions, bringing practical challenges to generalization to multiple systems. In this dissertation, we focus on transforming …