Templated Co-assembly of PS-b-PDMS Block Copolymer and Inorganic Nanoparticles

We studied the co-assembly behavior of block copolymer (BCP) and inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) with post arrays as graphoepitaxial template. We have developed a fabrication/characterization procedure for thin films composed of oil-soluble NPs (e.g. quantum dots capped with oleic acid and oleylamine) and polystyrene-\textit{b}-polydimethylsiloxane (PS-\textit{b}-PDMS) BCP. According to our experiments, NPs demonstrated a tendency to gather at defect points (X-shape, T-shape, L-shape) of the cylinder forming PDMS domain. Based upon this property, we used chemically functionalized hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) posts as templates to direct the BCP-NPs co-assembly. The HSQ posts were designed in such a way that the cylinder-phase of PS-\textit{b}-PDMS BCP can form X-shape and T-shape structure. Different conditions to control the location of the NPs within the thin film were studied.