Abstract
Lamellar patterns with periodicities from several tens to hundreds of nanometers were created by directional solidification and epitaxial crystallization of blends of poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) and poly(vinyl phenol) (PVPh) using hexamethylbenzene as a crystallizable solvent. The effects of blend composition and annealing conditions on both morphologies and periodicities of the patterns were systematically investigated. We show that the morphologies change with the blend composition because the miscibility of the blends and the strength of the hydrogen bonding interaction between PLLA and PVPh depend on the composition and affect the nanoscale phase separation during directional solidification and crystallization. The annealing time required to form well-ordered patterns also depends on the annealing temperature. Overall, we found that blends with 20–30 wt% PVPh annealed at 80 or 100 °C for 30–60 min resulted in well-ordered nanopatterns with tunable periodicity.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by a grant-in-aid for Scientific Research from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI No. 25600023). XZ thanks the MEXT Scholarship.
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Zhang, X., Ejima, H. & Yoshie, N. Periodic nanopatterns from polymer blends via directional solidification and subsequent epitaxial crystallization. Polym J 47, 498–504 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2015.26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pj.2015.26
