Tailoring the long-range order of block copolymer based nanomasks on flat substrates

The authors investigate the self-assembling of polystyrene/polymethylmethacrylate block copolymer films for the formation of nanotemplates on flat substrates. The macrodomain evolution is studied in terms of density, size, and relative orientation during the annealing promoting the self-assembling. The statistics is acquired through an original method based on the elaboration of the electronic micrographs in the reciprocal space. The results indicate that while the annealing conditions do not play a role in the pore-to-pore distance distribution, thus confirming previous results, they influence the macrodomain density and size distributions, inducing an onset of secondary grain growth crystallization behavior in this system. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.