Self-assembly of diblock copolymer confined in an array-structure space

The combination of top-down and bottom-up technologies is an effective method to create the novel nanostructures with long range order in the field of advanced materials manufacture. In this work, we employed a polymeric self-consistent field theory to investigate the pattern formation of diblock copolymer in a 2D confinement system designed by filling pillar arrays with various 2D shapes such as squares, rectangles, and triangles. Our simulation shows that in such confinement system, the microphase structure of diblock copolymer strongly depends on the pitch, shape, size, and rotation of the pillar as well as the surface field of confinement. The array structures can not only induce the formation of new phase patterns but also control the location and orientation of pattern structures. Finally, several methods to tune the commensuration and frustration of array-structure confinement are proposed and examined. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.