Universal SCFT phase behavior in conformationally asymmetric linear, comb, and bottlebrush block copolymers

Using self-consistent field theory, we study the stability window of the A15 and σ phases for comb block copolymers with identical bond lengths and linear polymers with asymmetric segment lengths. It is well known that for linear polymers the ratio of segment lengths defines a ”conformational asymmetry” parameter that is critical to phase behavior. We show that a more generalized conformational asymmetry can be defined for comb and bottlebrush block copolymers by comparing the length of sidechains. This approach collapses the phase behavior of all chain architectures to a single universal phase diagram. We also show that varying the chain statistics between continuous Gaussian, discrete Gaussian, and freely-jointed chains has a small impact on the phase behavior.