ABSTRACT
Block copolymers (BCP) have attracted great attention as a patterning tool in nanoscience because of their ability to self-assemble into highly ordered patterns on the 10 nm length scale. Electrochemical synthesis inside porous templates made from selectively sacrificial BCP films is well suited to the replication of such small-scale architectures in an enormous range of potential materials. In the region of an external interface, differences in the surface-free energy or affinity of each block toward the substrate have a strong influence on copolymer morphology. The behavior of cylinder-forming copolymers in the vicinity of a planar interface is perhaps less intuitive than lamellae. There are numerous theoretical and experimental studies of the electric field alignment of BCP using both in-plane and vertical fields. The key to electrochemical replication of BCP film morphologies lies in producing a porous template coating on a suitable conducting substrate. Polymer substrates are less robust than many inorganic nanostructures.
