Smart self-adjustment of surface micelles of an Amphiphilic block copolymer to nanoscopic pattern boundaries

Confining surface-pinned micelles consisting of a block copolymer onto a topographically patterned substrate is demonstrated (see figure) with a novel approach to control both the local as well as global structural symmetry and periodicity of the self-assembled block copolymer. No surface micelles are confined into the dents at the position of la. The surface micelles formed with bimodal size distribution are assembled into two different tetragonal symmetries indicated by the solid and dotted lines, respectively.