Creating, Controlling, and Understanding Nanopatterns in Block Copolymer Films

许多纳米技术依赖于具有各种类型的精确纳米级图案的材料和表面。容易制造的类型越多，这些纳米技术的设计和概念的灵活性就越大。纳米粒子难以通过光刻技术廉价地制造，因此，能够自然地自组装成期望的纳米粒子的材料被大量研究。在这些材料中有嵌段共聚物，特别是以膜的形式，其可以提供纳米图案化的表面。在我们的研究中，我们最近已经表明，一个简单而廉价的成膜程序称为浸涂，当应用于嵌段共聚物，可以同时控制膜厚度和图案在一个单一的步骤，只是通过改变浸涂速度。我们还使用所谓的Langmuir-Blodgett技术在水面上获得了具有特定图案的极薄薄膜，包括正方形图案（例如，用于纳米电子学）。基于这些非常有前途的结果，我们建议开发，特别是嵌段共聚物浸涂技术，以各种方式获得纳米粒子的多样性。为了智能地创建和控制这些图案，我们希望发展我们对所获得的图案与所使用的嵌段共聚物的分子特性（通常与特殊添加剂结合，这是一种简单的方式来修改或微调图案），所使用的溶液的结构和所使用的实验浸涂参数之间的关系的理解。同样，我们将应用Langmuir-Blodgett技术来控制特殊模式。我们的薄膜的两个应用领域是医疗纳米生物传感器和纳米光子学。我们的研究预计将有利于加拿大纳米技术的发展，并直接培训HQP在这一领域和相关领域。

Many nanotechnologies rely on materials and surfaces with precise nanoscale patterns of various types. The more types that can be easily fabricated, the greater the flexibility for the design and conception of these nanotechnologies. Nanopatterns are difficult to fabricate cheaply by lithographic techniques, and therefore materials that are capable of self-assembling naturally into desired nanopatterns are heavily researched. Among these materials are block copolymers, particularly in the form of films, which can provide nanopatterned surfaces. In our research, we have shown recently that an easy and cheap film-forming procedure called dip-coating, when applied to block copolymers, can give simultaneous control over film thickness and its patterning in a single step, just by varying the dip-coating speed. We have also obtained extremely thin films with particular patterns, including a square pattern (useful, for example, for nanoelectronics), on a water surface using a so-called Langmuir-Blodgett technique. Based on these very promising results, we propose to develop, in particular, the block copolymer dip-coating technique in various ways to obtain a diversity of nanopatterns. To create and control these patterns intelligently, we want to develop our understanding of the relationship between the patterns obtained and the molecular characteristics of the block copolymer used (often combined with special additives that are an easy way to modify or fine-tune the patterns), the structure of the solutions used, and the experimental dip-coating parameters used. Similarly, we will apply the Langmuir-Blodgett technique to control special patterns. Two areas of applications of our films towards which we will contribute are medical nanobiosensors and nanophotonics. Our research is expected to benefit the development of nanotechnologies in Canada and directly trains HQP in this and related areas.