Controlled Self-Assembly of Polystyrene-block-Polydimethylsiloxane for Fabrication of Nanonetwork Silica Monoliths

Herein, this work aims to carry out controlled self assembly of single-composition block copolymer for the fabrication of various nanonetwork silica monoliths. With the use of lamellae forming polystyrene-block-polydimethylsiloxane (PS-b-PDMS), nanonetwork-structured films could be fabricated by solvent annealing using a PS-selective solvent (chloroform). By simply tuning the flow rate of nitrogen purge to the PS-selective solvent for the controlled self-assembly of the PS-b-PDMS, gyroid-and diamond-structured monoliths can be formed due to the difference in the effective volume of PS in the PS-b-PDMS during solvent annealing. As a result, well-ordered nanonetwork SiO2 (silica) monoliths can be fabricated by templated sol-gel reaction using hydrofluoric acid etched PS-b-PDMS film as a template followed the removal of the PS. This bottom-up approach for the fabrication of nanonetwork materials through templated synthesis to create nanonetwork materials for various

Automated summary

This work demonstrates the controlled self-assembly of single-composition block copolymer to fabricate various nanonetwork silica monoliths, with different structures obtained by solvent annealing. Well-ordered nanonetwork SiO2 monoliths were fabricated through templated sol-gel reaction using PS-b-PDMS film as a template.