Abstract:

The ordered mesostructures formed by block copolymers on the nanoscale via the self-assembly have attracted a lot of attention of high-performance material science due to its important， potential applications， especially the single gyroid network， single diamond network， and the single plumber′s nightmare （SPN） network. These three networks are very important in the fields of three-dimensional photonic crystals. Whereas single gyroid and single diamond have been stabilized in block copolymers by adjusting the chain architectures， blending， and using multicomponent systems， so far， no effective way has been found to stabilize the SPN network. Considering such situations， by designing B₁A₁B₂A₂C₃B₃， B₁A₁B₂A₂C₃， B₁A₁C₂B₂A₂C₃， B₁A₁C₂A₂C₃， and B₁C₁A₁C₂A₂C₃ multiblock copolymers and based on the simple cubic spheres to generate the unstable states via the rapid-component change of blocks， C， from B to A， the nonequilibrium kinetics of structural evolution starting from these unstable states and the corresponding mechanism as well as the effects from the number， position， and size of blocks， C， are explored. The exploration indicates that the metastable SPN network can be reached by the nonequilibrium kinetics of structural evolution after the rapid-component change of blocks， C， within a relatively wide range of volume-fraction A， which is mainly because that the symmetry of simple cubic spheres is the same as that of SPN （No.221 space group）.

Key words: Block copolymer, Spherical mesostructure, Network mesostructure, Alchemical transformation, Nonequilibrium self-assembly