Investigating Microphase Separated Triblock Copolymers as Vehicles for Targeted Mechano-responsive Materials

In recent years, research on force-responsive molecules has grown, providing avenues for the development of mechano-responsive materials for a variety of applications. While there has been progress towards the development of many force-responsive molecules (mechanophores) with a variety of response mechanisms, sufficient fundamental understanding of force distributions in adequate bulk materials is currently lacking. Recent studies have shown that microphase-separated triblock copolymers are promising as mechanophore carriers over their elastomers due to their greater design space and increased activation efficiency. Here, we take steps towards exploring this design space using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. We simulate a microphase separated triblock copolymer melt with periodic boundary conditions and incrementally elongating the system along one axis with isothermal-isobaric conditions to mimic experimental tensile deformation. We present our findings on the effect of mechanophore location along the chain on the bulk activation behavior using molecular-scale data gathered using simulations.