Triply Periodic Bicontinuous Network Structures of Various Symmetries for Molten Block Copolymers

The evolution of new triply periodic bicontinuous morphologies of molten diblock and triblock copolymers is theoretically studied in a mean-field level. The evolved mesophases are probed through characteristic peaks in the scattering functions and the real-space visualization. The ABC or AB copolymers at selected compositions and segregation levels exhibit holey network structures, where the channels are wholly connected with tetrapod units. There also evolves a network resembling one type of zeolites. The curvatures, surface areas, and genera g of their dividing surfaces are estimated by matching them to proper model surfaces. The obtained surface properties of the newly developed networks are discussed in comparison with those of the known bicontinuous networks such as double gyroids and double diamonds. In addition, we discuss how to analyze the effects of charges at the terminal groups on mesophase evolution.