Designing an ordered template of cylindrical arrays based on a simple flat plate confinement of block copolymers: a coarse-grained molecular dynamics study

Confinement of Colloids with Competing Interactions in Ordered Porous Materials

In this work, we explore the possibility of promoting the formation of ordered microphases by confinement of colloids with competing interactions in ordered porous materials. For that aim, we consider three families of porous materials modeled as cubic primitive, diamond, and gyroid bicontinuous phases. The structure of the confined colloids is investigated by means of grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations in thermodynamic conditions at which either a cluster crystal or a cylindrical phase is stable in bulk. We find that by tuning the size of the unit cell of these porous materials, numerous novel ordered microphases can be produced, including cluster crystals arranged into close packed and open lattices as well as nonparallel cylindrical phases.

Three-dimensional line edge roughness in pre- and post-dry etch line and space patterns of block copolymer lithography

In this work, we employ large-scale coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) simulations to study the three-dimensional line edge roughness associated with line and space patterns of chemo-epitaxially directed symmetric block copolymers (BCPs) on a flat substrate. The di-block copolymer chain length and interaction parameters are validated with the experimental BCP period, L0 and corresponding molecular weight. Defect-free lamellae are formed, after which the system is quenched below the glass transition temperature before selectively dry-etching off one of the BCP phases. The effect of varying etch-selectivity on post-etch resist domain morphology was studied. The roughness of the polymer domain was evaluated over three process stages: annealing, pre-etching, and post-etching. Power spectral density plots were then generated to elucidate the contributions of low and high frequency roughness for the three process stages. The roughness results obtained from simulations are shown to be in close agreement with the roughness result obtained from analyzing experimental SEM images. Parameters like the Hurtz roughness exponent and correlation length inherent to the process and the BCP were also revealed from the experimental study.