Tiling Patterns Formed by ABC Miktoarm Star Triblock Terpolymers at the Strong Segregation

When the three blocks have comparable volume fractions {f_P} (P=A,B,C), ABC miktoarm star triblock terpolymers tend to form 2D tiling patterns that are rarely found in other block copolymer systems. Previous self-consistent field (SCF) calculations suggest that such tiling patterns are more stable as the segregation among the different blocks becomes stronger. In this work we use a strong-segregation theory (SST) to determine the stable regions of various tiling patterns (as compared to lamellar-type structures), which occupy the center portion of the triangular phase diagram in the {f_P} parameter space, and compare the SST results with our recent SCF calculations (C. Hawthorne, J. He, and Q. Wang, Phys. Rev. Mater. 8, 045604 (2024)).