Suzuki M, Orido T, Takano A, Matsushita Y. The Largest Quasicrystalline Tiling with Dodecagonal Symmetry from a Single Pentablock Quarterpolymer of the AB
1CB
2D Type.
ACS NANO 2022;
16:6111-6117. [PMID:
35315642 DOI:
10.1021/acsnano.1c11599]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
A quasicrystalline tiling pattern with tile size of ca. 60 nm has been discovered in the bulk state of a four-component pentablock polymer molecule of the AS1IS2P type, where A, S, I, and P denote poly(4-vinylbenzyldimethylamine), polystyrene, polyisoprene, and poly(2-vinylpyridine), respectively. The polymer samples used were prepared by anionic polymerizations and have narrow molecular weight distribution. The sample films were obtained by an extremely slow solvent-cast process from dilute solutions of tetrahydrofuran for 14 days. It has been found by TEM observation that the quarterpolymer, AS1IS2P-4 (Mn = 149 kg/mol, ϕA/ϕS1/ϕI/ϕS2/ϕP = 0.12/0.27/0.20/0.29/0.13), reveals two final stable structures, i.e., a 3.3.4.3.4 periodic tiling pattern as a minor component and a quasicrystalline (QC) tiling with dodecagonal symmetry as a major component, where the former includes a triangle/square number ratio of 2 and the latter has one of approximately 2.28, which is close enough to the ideal ratio, 4/ 3 ≑ 2.31, for the triangle/square random tiling of the dodecagonal QC tiling (DDQC). Two structures were also clearly proved by SAXS diffraction patterns. Here, it should be noted this QC structure having a tile side length of ca. 60 nm was created with a single block polymer molecule.
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