Block copolymer nanostructures formed by disturbed self-assembly and uses thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10364141-B2
Application number	US-201415107647-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 18, 2014
Priority date	Dec 23, 2013
Publication date	Jul 30, 2019
Grant date	Jul 30, 2019

Abstract

Block copolymer nanostructures such as nanosheets, nanoribbons, and nanotubes, are provided. The nanotructures are formed by the self-assembly of block copolymers during evaporation of solvent from a sol that has been “disturbed”, either i) internally by the introduction of relief (e.g. curvature) and/or the inclusion of nanoparticles in the sol; or ii) externally, e.g. by physical deformation of a semi-solid form of the sol, or a combination of internal and external disturbance. The nanostructures have uses in, for example, energy devices, electronics, sensors and drug delivery applications.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of making solid state block copolymer nanostructures, comprising depositing a block copolymer sol on a substrate;
evaporating liquid from said block copolymer sol to form a semi-solid;
physically modifying the surface of the semi-solid; and
evaporating liquid from the semi-solid, wherein the step of evaporating liquid from the semi-solid causes spontaneous assembly of the three-dimensional co-polymeric nanostructures at or near the site of physical modification.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of physically modifying is performed by scoring or etching the surface of the semi-solid.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said block copolymer is a bi-block copolymer or a tri-block copolymer.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said bi-block copolymer is selected from the group consisting of polyethylene-block-poly(ethylene glycol), polylactide-block-poly(ethylene glycol), and polystyrene-block-poly(acrylic acid); and said tri-block copolymer is selected from the group consisting of polylactide-block-poly(ethylene glycol)-block-polylactide and poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(propylene glycol)-block-poly(ethylene glycol).

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said solid state block copolymer nanostructure is or includes one or more of a nanosheet, a nanoribbon and a nanotube.

Assignees

• Univ Washington State

Inventors

• Wang Yu
• Zhong wei-hong

Classifications

• B81C1/00007 Primary

  Assembling automatically hinged components, i.e. self-assembly processes (self-assembly mechanisms B81B7/0003) · CPC title

• B81C2201/0149

  Forming nanoscale microstructures using auto-arranging or self-assembling material · CPC title

• C08G81/00

  Macromolecular compounds obtained by interreacting polymers in the absence of monomers, e.g. block polymers (involving only carbon-to-carbon unsaturated bond reactions C08F299/00 {; polyester-amides C08G69/44; polyester-imides C08G73/16; polyamides-imides C08G73/14; block- or graft polymers containing polysiloxane sequences C08G77/42}) · CPC title

• B81C1/00031 Primary

  Regular or irregular arrays of nanoscale structures, e.g. etch mask layer (photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces G03F7/00; lithographic processes for making patterned surfaces using printing and stamping G03F7/0002) · CPC title

• C08F299/0492

  the unsaturation being in acrylic or methacrylic groups · CPC title