12-13E
12-13E
Dissipative particle dynamics study of solvent mediated transitions in pores decorated with tethered polymer brushes in the form of stripes
We study self-assembly of a binary mixture of components A and B confined in a slit-like pore with the walls modified by the stripes of tethered brushes of beads A. We concentrate on solvent mediated transitions between morphologies when the composition of the mixture varies. For certain limiting cases of the pore geometry we found an effective reduction of the dimensionality to quasi one- and two-dimensional demixing cases. The change of a local environment for the chains upon varying the mixture composition provides an explanation for formation of a range of morphologies and, in some cases, for switching between them. We found solvent mediated lamellar, meander and in-lined cylinder phases which are analysed quantitatively on the values of brush overlap integrals and the components of a gyration tensor.