Program the self-assembly of block copolymers for desired mesocrystals

The packing of particles in soft matter as a fundamental problem has been paid a lot of attension. As the enthalpic and entropic contributions to the free energy is comparable and could be readily tuned, the packing of soft particles leads to rich crystalline structures (i.e. mesocrystals). To understand the packing mechanism of various soft particles into different crystalline structures and thus to modulate the packing of soft particles for desired mesocrystals is an important problem to be solved. Block copolymer provides a perfect model for solving this problem due to two main reasons. The first reason is that the self-assembly of block copolymers can be programmed by tuning the molecular architectures and modern synthesis techniques enable the precise control of the architectures. The second one is that the self-assembly of block copolymers can be accurately predicted by the well-established self-consistent field theory (SCFT). In this talk, I will talk about programming the self-assembly of block copolymers for desired mesocrystals or even mesoscale quasicrystals based on SCFT calculations.