Hosted by: Oleg Gang

Block copolymer self-assembly allows the rapid formation of nanostructures over wide areas. Yet, the range of possible patterns is fairly limited. I will present emerging strategies for constructing three-dimensional nanostructures whose shapes and symmetries go beyond those of the bulk equilibrium diblock copolymer phase diagram. Photo-thermal methods are used to accelerate assembly, and control block copolymer ordering and orientation. Self-assembly is known to be pathway-dependent, which can be exploited to select a particular nano-pattern. Ordered layers can be stacked to yield new lattice symmetries. This multi-layered ordering can be performed in a responsive mode, where each self-assembled layer templates the ones that follow. Taken together, these new motifs point towards the ability to construct designed, multi-functional 3D nanostructures.