ABSTRACT
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 II. Synthesis of Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 III. Methods for Investigation of Morphological Properties and Phase Transitions . . . . . . . . . 355 IV. Block Copolymers in the Bulk State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
A. Linear Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356 1. Binary Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356 2. Ternary Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358 3. Block Copolymers with More than Three Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
B. Star Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 1. Miktoarm Star Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 2. Miktoarm Star Terpolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
V. Mixtures of Block Copolymers with Low Molecular Weight Solvents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 VI. Blends of Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
A. Block Copolymers as Compatibilizers in Polymer Blends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 B. Blends of Block Copolymers with a Homopolymer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 C. Blends of Two Block Copolymers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
VII. Block Copolymers with Crystalline Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380 VIII. Block Copolymers in External Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
A. Pressure Dependent Phase Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 B. Orientation by Shear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 C. Orientation by Electric Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
IX. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
I. INTRODUCTION
Block copolymers are macromolecules, composed of two or more polymer blocks of chemically different monomers, which are linked together by chemical bonds. The resulting chain topologies
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can be linear, branched, or cyclic. The total number of monomers (or more correctly, repeating units) in a block copolymer is the degree of polymerization N . Table 1 shows a few examples for block copolymers containing two or three different types of monomers. Systematic studies of these materials became possible through the developments in polymerization techniques, which made possible the synthesis of well-defined block copolymers with a very small polydispersity.
