Block Copolymer Self Assembly during Rapid Solvent Evaporation: Insights into Cylinder Growth and Stability

Solvent evaporation has proven, to be a remarkably successful tool for directing self-assembly in block copolymers, yet the microscopic mechanisms, processing history dependence and macroscopic control parameters influencing pattern Selection remain poorly understood. Here, we leverage dynamical field theory simulations to clarify how copolymer self-assembly proceeds during evaporation. We find that cylinders in the vertical orientation tend to form under modest evaporation rates and relatively weak segregation strengths, and link this behavior to nontrivial, morphology-dependent density correlations present at the ordering front.