Morphology diagrams for A2B copolymer melts: Real-space self-consistent field theory

Morphology diagrams for A₂B copolymer melts are constructed using real-space self-consistent field theory (SCFT). In particular, the effect of architectural asymmetry on the morphology diagram is studied. It is shown that asymmetry in the lengths of A arms in the A₂B copolymer melts aids in the microphase separation. As a result, the disorder-order transition boundaries for the A₂B copolymer melts are shown to shift downward in terms of χN, χ and N being the Flory's chi parameter and the total number of the Kuhn segments, respectively, in comparison with the A₂B copolymers containing symmetric A arms. Furthermore, perforated lamellar (PL) and a micelle-like (M) microphase segregated morphologies are found to compete with the classical morphologies namely, lamellar, cylinders, spheres and gyroid. The PL morphology is found to be stable for A₂B copolymers containing asymmetric A arms and M is found to be metastable for the parameter range explored in this work.