Structural control of polymer nanocomposites is important for their applications in organic semiconductors, lithographic nanopatterning, separation membranes, and nanofabrication templates. However, manufacturing nanocomposite materials with novel structures in a highly efficient yet precise manner remains a great challenge. To create nanocomposite structures, we combined self-assembly processing of block copolymer (BCP)-metal complex nanocomposites with an applied magnetic field. Here, we describe in detail the mechanism of magnetic alignment of block copolymers doped with metal complexes; specifically, we investigated the effect of the applied magnetic field on the phase behavior of the assembled block copolymer-metal complex nanocomposites with various molecular weights and with different molecular structures. We show that our combination of self-assembly processing and application of a magnetic field yielded lamellar structures of alternating multilayers with different layer thicknesses. This self-assembled structure is not included in phase diagrams of BCPs. The influence of the block copolymers’ molecular structures on the nanocomposites’ phase transformation behavior is also discussed. Our results provide a route to manufacturing nanocomposite materials in a highly efficient yet precise manner, which could lead to improvement in the material properties of nanocomposites.
