Self-assembly of triblock copolymers in melts and solutions

The self-assembly of block copolymers can lead to a variety of ordered structures on a nanometer scale. In this article, the self-assembling behaviors of triblock copolymers in the melt and the selective solvent are described with the results obtained from the computer simulations. With the advances of computing power, computer simulations using molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo techniques make it possible to study very complicated phenomena observed in the self-assembly of triblock copolymer. Taking full advantage of the computer simulation based on well-defined model, the effects of various structural and thermodynamic parameters such as the copolymer composition, the block sequence, the pairwise interaction energies, and temperature on the self-assembly are discussed in some detail. Some simulation results are compared with experimental ones and analyzed by comparing them with the theoretical treatment.