The influence of the end-group on the chiral self-assembly of all-conjugated block copolymers

Abstract

The self-assembly of all-conjugated block copolymers is an effective way to obtain well-ordered structures at the nanoscale. Although these polymers possess an end-group and a lot of research has been done on their self-assembly, the influence of the end-groups has hardly been considered. Both the nature of the blocks as well as the degree of polymerization (DP) play a crucial role in the solubility of the different blocks in a conjugated block copolymer. Here, we hypothesize that also the end-group is of importance: bulkier end-groups increase the solubility of that particular preceding block and thus will have an influence on the self-assembly. This hypothesis is validated using three series of all-conjugated block copolymers in which the blocks are composed of the two enantiomers of a chiral monomer.