The morphologies and phase diagrams exhibited by symmetric ABC star triblock copolymer nanoparticles are investigated on the basis of real-space self-consistent field theory. The ABC star triblock copolymers were chosen to be tiling-forming with fixed polymer parameter and the spherical boundaries were modeled using the masking technique. We first study a number of examples where the ABC triblock copolymers confined in spherical cavities with neutral surface. Then, two types of spherical cavity distinct preferential surfaces are considered, including both A-block attractive and repulsive preferential surfaces. We aim at the effects due to various spherical cavity diameters and the degree of interactions between the polymer and the spherical surface. A variety of morphologies, such as ring-like structures, concentric sphere, and irregular cylinder, were identified in phase diagrams. The results show that both the degree of interactions and spherical diameters can influence the formation of morphologies so that ring-like structures and other novel structures could be obtained.
The phase behaviours of a lamellar diblock copolymer/nanorod composite under steady shear are investigated using dissipative particle dynamics. We consider a wide range of nanorod concentrations, where the nanorods each have a preferential affinity to one of the blocks. Our results suggest that shear not only aligns the orientations of the diblock eopolymer templates and nanorods towards flow direction, but also regulates the distribution of the nanorods within the polymer matrix. Meanwhile, the shear-induced reorientation and morphology transitions of the systems also significantly depend on the nanorod concentration. At certain nanorod concentrations, the competitions between shearinduced polymer thinning and nanorods dispersion behaviours determine the phase behaviours of the composites. For high nanorod concentrations, no morphology transition is observed, but reorientation is present, in which the sheared nanorods are arranged into hexagonal packing arrays. Additionally, the orientation behaviour of nanorods is determined directly by the applied shear, also interfered with by the shear-stretched copolymer molecules.
