Monte‐Carlo Study of Triblock Copolymer/Homopolymer Blend Films

Abstract

Abstract The morphologies of triblock copolymer/homopolymer blend films confined between two neutral hard walls were studied via MC simulations on a simple cubic lattice. For ABA/A and ABA/B blend films, the effects of φ h (the volume fraction of the homopolymer) and M h / M b (the ratio of the molecular mass of the homopolymer to that of the corresponding blocks) on the morphologies were investigated in detail. For both ABA/A and ABA/B blend films, a higher φ h or M h / M b would result in stronger macrophase separation between the triblock copolymer and homopolymer. For ABA/C blend films, M h / M b hardly influences the morphologies of homopolymer domains regardless of whether the homopolymer C is more compatible with block A or with block B. Compared to AB/A and AB/C blend films, the morphologies of ABA/A (or ABA/B) and ABA/C blend films are much more irregular. The simulated results in this work show good consistency with experiments and other simulations. magnified image