Microphase Separation of Phenylene Oligomers with Polymeric Side Chains: A Dissipative Particle Dynamics Study

The microphase-separated morphologies of p-phenylene oligomers with POx, PCL, PS, and PEO side chains are studied using DPD simulations. It is shown that the microphase-separated morphologies depend significantly on the degree of chemical incompatibility between the components as indicated by the Flory-Huggins interaction parameters. The good agreement of the microphase separated morphologies as simulated by DPD with the experimentally determined thin film morphologies suggests that DPD can produce convincing morphological information at the nanoscale. The results show that grafting of polymeric side chains can be an important tool to control the morphology of polymers with a rigid backbone.