The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Hierarchical structures are prevalent in biological systems, where structural organization in multiple length scales leads to functionalities. We introduce a multicomponent, hierarchically nanostructured colloids based on the self-assembly of mixed graft bottlebrush copolymers (mGBCPs) confined in evaporative emulsion droplets. The mGBCPs were synthesized utilizing polystyrene (PS), poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS), and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) side-chains. Such mixed graft architecture is described by the mixture of block- and random-sequence bottlebrush, in which phase separation in two different length scale can occur to form complex morphologies such as lamellae-in-lamellae and cylinders-in-lamellae. In particular, we observed the particle shape transitioned from onion-like to ellipsoidal morphologies as the volume fraction of PLA for for PS-b-(PDMS-r-PLA) architecture. also PLA-b-(PS-r-PDMS) architecture allows successfully control complex ternary morphologies.