Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

Combinatorial and high-throughput methodologies offer a promising route to accelerate materials research by addressing multiple experimental parameters in parallel, but have been limited in their ability to address formulation and composition spaces for soft matter thin films. Electrospray deposition (ESD) enables the growth of polymer thin films in a precise and continuous manner through the delivery of sub-micron sized droplets of dilute polymer solutions to a heated substrate. We combine ESD with programmable motor control and a gradient solution delivery system in a first-of-its-kind user tool at the CFN. A LabVIEW Virtual Instrument offers users careful control of the jet stability, flow composition, spray position, and substrate temperature. These capabilities make it possible to construct thin film multicomponent "libraries" on a single substrate to rapidly and systematically characterize composition-dependent properties. In particular, we fabricated and characterized thin films involving self-assembling polymer blends as a canonical system to demonstrate the capabilities of this user tool. Polymer blending offers a straightforward way to tune self-assembled pattern size, morphology, and degree of order without resorting to the arduous and time-consuming synthesis of new polymers. Paired with synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering, this tool forms an integral part of a new platform for high-throughput, autonomous characterization and design of self-assembling polymers as well as functional soft materials more generally.