Effect of competing architectural asymmetries on the self-assembly of star copolymers

Self assembly of block copolymers is of interest in many areas of soft matter physics from fundamental studies to real-life applications. Here we explore the behavior of star copolymers with arms that are copolymers themselves, and that present architectural asymmetries, e. g. the volume fractions of the different chemical blocks in different arms is not conserved. By using self-consistent field-theoretic (SCFT) simulations and a self-driving in-silico lab platform we discover and characterize the transformations/morphologies occurring in this system as a function of the incompatibility parameter. We extend this results to more complex star copolymers, including janus stars.