Pattern formation in electro-responsive polymer ionic liquid blends

Self-assembly has been one of the widely used approaches for designing multifunctional soft materials. Here, we explore polymer-ionic liquid (PIL) systems and demonstrate the formation of intricate ordered patterns in these systems using an external electric field. First, we establish the equilibrium phase diagram of binary electro-responsive PIL blends and subsequently, use the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equation to model the kinetics of pattern formation. Our simulations reveal the formation of ordered patterns that are oriented in the direction of electric field. We also demonstrate that by tuning the direction of the electric field, ordering of the PIL domains can be dynamically controlled. The underlying mechanism is the change in the interactions between various PIL moieties namely, cation-anion, polymer-anion, and polymer-cation. We believe that our methodology provides a simplistic mechanism for creating ordered patterns in soft materials through reaction-diffusion phenomena that can be harnessed for other similar stimuli-responsive systems.