Ordering stripe structures of nanoscale rods in diblock copolymer scaffolds

We report a simulation on the formation of ordered stripe structures of nanoscale rods driven by symmetric diblock copolymer melts. Due to the preferential adsorption of one species of the diblock onto the mobile rods, the phase ordering process will couple with the movement of rods. We find that the self-assembly of rods on the copolymer scaffold produces the highly ordered nanowires of rods, and copolymer blends in turn form the well-oriented lamellar structure. This is due to the interplay among the micro-phase separating dynamics in the diblock copolymer, the wetting interaction between rods and diblock copolymer, and the nematic ordering dynamics of rods. We examine the influence of the domain size, the wetting strength, and the rod number density on the formation of such a nanoscale structure. Additionally, we indicate that the orientation of the pattern can be well controlled by external fields acting on the rods. The results suggest that our model system may provide a novel and simple way to control and design the ordering nanowire structure. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.