Tiling Patterns Self-Assembled from Rod-Coil Copolymers with Hydrogen Bonds

Based on self-consistent field theory (SCFT), we demonstrate that X-shaped rod-coil molecules with hydrogen-bonding groups, can self-assemble into Archimedean tiling patterns. The rod blocks form the polygon edges with coil blocks filling in the inner spaces of polygons. The existence of hydrogen bonds further decreases the domain size. A new mechanism is proposed to guide the formation of Archimedean tiling patterns: the fabrication of tiling patterns is controlled by the relationship between the length to diameter ratio and volume fraction of rods in X-shaped supra-macromolecules. This study provides a concept of macromolecular tiling and suggests X-shaped rod–coil supra-macromolecules with hydrogen-bonding groups as an ideal platform for the fabrication of two-dimensional nanoscale patterns.