Sample Abstract
A sample abstract from a recent technical paper is included below.
Block copolymers (BCPs) must necessarily have high interaction parameters (χ), a fundamental measure of block incompatibility, to self-assemble into sub–10-nanometer features. Unfortunately, a high χ often results from blocks that have disparate interfacial energies, which makes the formation of useful thin-film domain orientations challenging. TO (note two capital letters! Can you write this sentence in active voice??) mitigate interfacial forces, polymers composed of maleic anhydride and two other components have been designed as topcoats that can be spin-coated from basic aqueous solution in the ring-opened, acid salt form. When baked, the anhydride reforms and switches polarity to create a neutral layer enabling BCP feature alignment not possible by thermal annealing alone. Top coats were applied to the lamella-forming block copolymers poly(styrene-block-trimethylsilylstyrene-block-styrene) and poly(trimethylsilylstyrene-block-lactide), which were thermally annealed to produce perpendicular features with linewidths of 15 and 9 nm, respectively.
Source:
Bates, Christopher M.; Seshimo, Takehiro; Maher, Michael J.; Durand, William J.; Cushen, Julia D.; Dean, Leon M.; Blachut, Gregory; Ellison, Christopher J.; Willson, C. Grant “Polarity-Switching Top Coats Enable Orientation of Sub-10-nm Block Copolymer Domains,” Science 338(6108) 775 (2012)