Structural Formation Process of Microphase Separated Films with Liquid Crystalline Phase Transition

Ordered nanostructures arising from the microphase separation of block copolymers have driven one to fabricate nanofunctional materials as fundamental technology of the coming electronic and photonic materials. Thin films of a series of newly designed amphiphilic block copolymer consisting of hydrophilic polyethylene oxide (PEO) and hydrophobic polymethacrylate with azobenzene-mesogen in side-chain (PMA(Az)) show highly ordered microphase separation with PEO cylinders perpendicularly oriented to the film surface. In the present report, we investigated a structural formation process of the microphase separated films by temperature controlled atomic force microscopy (AFM) and grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS). These measurements revealed that homeotropic alignments of Az liquid crystalline layers predominated the cylinder orientation, which corresponded to a $<$110$>$ direction of body centered cubic structure under annealing condition, in disagreement with cylinder orientation of order-order transition of traditional block copolymers.