Understanding and controlling metal oxide growth within block copolymers

In recent years, sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS) has emerged as a novel technique for growth of inorganic materials within block copolymers (BCP) and templating inorganic nanostructures from BCP due to SIS high growth rate and selectivity within polar BCP domains. However, to utilize SIS in a variety of BCP and in multiple length scales, there is high need for a full description of SIS mechanism.
Here we investigate the principles that govern SIS growth in homopolymers and block copolymers using cominnation of in situ growth characterization, 3D TEM tomography, and quantum mechanical calculations. We probe the diffusion and growth within the polymers and show its relationship to the polymer chemistry, precursor chemistry, and SIS process parameters. From this data, SIS model was constructed that enabled us to fabricate new BCP-templated nanostructures, including porous particles, heterostructure nanorod array and multi-layer membranes.