Tuning crystallization pathway via confinement

Polymer crystallization is often sensitive to the environment and chain defects. In this talk, we present how to tune polymer crystallization pathways by introducing soft confinement and varying the chain structure. The first part of the talk will be focusing on templating crystallization using a liquid/liquid interface. Both flat and curved interfaces will be discussed. In the second part of the talk, we will show that by introducing non-crystallizable moieties into the chain, the morphology and structure of polymer crystals can be significantly modified. These non-crystallizable moieties can also be viewed as internal confinement for chain crystallization. The discussion will be particularly focused on shape-symmetry incommensurate crystals with broken translational symmetry. We emphasize that not only can tuning crystallization pathways shed light on understanding crystallization mechanisms, but it also provides a promising way to fabricate functional materials.