Download or read book Synthesis and Self-assembly of Gradient Copolymers written by Kevin Wylie and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Controlled free radical polymerization allows for the fine control of many key properties of polymers such as the molecular weight, dispersity and composition. Consequently, this permits the attainment of interesting microstructures such as block or tapered/gradient copolymers. In particular, nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP) was applied and used for the polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and styrene (St) block and tapered gradient polymers. With the defined composition and molecular weight, such copolymers are able to self-assemble into sub-50 nm domains. In this thesis, gradient copolymers synthesized in semi-batch mode were produced with varying composition and gradient profiles by alternating the rate of St addition and the length of the reaction. Their self-assembly performance was assessed relative to block copolymers with identical molecular properties and found to have similar feature sizes. However, with increasing gradient length, the self-assembly is negatively affected, producing films with very little order and much higher defect densities than block copolymers or polymers with short gradient lengths." --