文摘
Self-assembling block copolymers provide access to the fabrication of various ordered phases. In particular, the ordered spherical phases can be used to engineer soft mesocrystals with domain size at the 5鈥?00 nm scales. Simple block copolymers, such as diblock copolymers, form a limited number of mesocrystals. However multiblock copolymers are capable to form more complex mesocrystals. We demonstrate that designed B1AB2CB3 multiblock terpolymers, in which the A- and C-blocks form spherical domains and the packing of these spheres can be controlled by changing the lengths of the middle and terminal B-blocks, self-assemble into various binary mesocrystals with space group symmetries of a large number of binary ionic crystals, including NaCl, CsCl, ZnS, 伪-BN, AlB2, CaF2, TiO2, ReO3, Li3Bi, Nb3Sn(A15), and 伪-Al2O3. This approach can be generalized to other terpolymers as well as to tetrapolymers to obtain ternary mesocrystals. Our study provides a new concept of macromolecular metallurgy for producing crystal phases in a mesoscale and thus makes multiblock copolymers a robust platform for the engineering of functional materials.