Ordered nanostructure of PS-b-PEO copolymer by solvent annealing with mixture of benzene/water vapor and its micropattern fabrication

We investigate the effect of water/benzene co-solvent vapor on the ordering of poly(styrene-b-ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO) copolymer thin film on silicon substrate upon solvent annealing. In-plane cylindrical PEO microdomains were observed after exposure of benzene vapor. The addition of water vapor dominantly produced the cylindrical PEO domains aligned perpendicular to the substrate. The best ordering of the cylinders was obtained at the water fraction of approximately 0.05. The degree of ordering decreases while the periodicity of haxagonally packed PEO cylinders increases with the amount of water in the vapor mixture. The average center-to-center distance of hexagonally packed cylindrical PEO microdomains increases with the water fraction from approximately 25 nm to 40 nm. As one way of utilizing the dewetting of thin films inevitable during solvent annealing, PS-b-PEO micropatterns prepared by microcontact printing were treated with co-solvent vapor, which allows us to fabricate the controlled dewet structures guided by the micropatterns. Cylinder-to-sphere phase transition of PEO microdomains also occurred upon solvent annealing in the micropatterned PS-b-PEO films.