Irreversible Physisorption of PS-b-PMMA Copolymers on Substrates for Balanced Interfacial Interactions as a Versatile Surface Modification.

We present a direct approach to fabricating the perfect neutral layer for block copolymer (BCP) self-assembled thin films. An irreversible physisorption of polystyrene-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) itself onto the bottom substrates, though extremely thin, offers such a compositional randomness for the substrates, directing the balanced interfacial interactions toward both blocks of the top-layer PS-b-PMMA. Owing to the neutral property from the skin layers, the chemically identical BCP self-assembles into perpendicular microdomains on the adsorbed layer composed of itself, as identified in symmetric PS-b-PMMA films. Intriguingly, the compositional randomness turns out to be valid when the correlation length (ξ) of the BCP layer adsorbed on the substrates is shorter than equilibrium lamellar spacing (L0) of the BCP. Our strategy provides its versatility applicable to various substrates without any necessity of specific random copolymer brushes or mats, enabling the design of a neutral platform for PS-b-PMMA films.

Giant Gyroid and Templates from High-Molecular-Weight Block Copolymer Self-assembly.

We present a feasible approach to the direct development of three-dimensionally (3D) bicontinuous gyroid (GYR) nanostructure in high-molecular-weight, composition-controlled polystyrene-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) films. The use of a neutral solvent vapor to elaborately control the swelling of block copolymer (BCP) films is essential to generate a direct pathway to GYR (or giant GYR) structure through a hexagonal (HEX) cylindrical morphology in the same material, because the thermal ordering of highly entangled BCP imposes the limit on the chain mobility. Along with the improved mechanical strength arising from the high molecular weight property of the polymers, the structural integrity and overall excellence of a large-scale GYR morphology were confirmed by the results of membrane performance, which showed greater permeability through the nanoporous GYR structure up to by a factor of three than that through the HEX structure. Moreover, a 3D nanoporous GYR template was applied to an affordable material to reproduce an inverse skeletal replica of the GYR structure with its structure being uniformly interconnected. This simple approach to the GYR template, owing to its structural tunability in a controlled composition of BCP, is anticipated to be applicable to a wide range of materialization for practical systems.

Efficient Raman laser system using stimulated Brillouin scattering with different confocal parameters for CH(4).

We report the efficient Raman laser system with the wavelength of 1.54 microm from a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with high-pressure methane gas. It has been known that the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) prevents the Raman conversion. The efficiency of the Raman conversion, however, has been greatly enhanced with a specially designed lens to use a backward-stimulated Brillouin in our scheme. The special lens has a focal length of 12 cm, and a maximum conversion efficiency of 51% has been obtained with the first-Stokes energy of 32 mJ and the residual pump energy of 30 mJ at 1,400 psi. Comparing two resonators with different focal lengths of the lenses, we have found that backward-SBS can be greatly enhanced by use of the shorter focal length of 12 cm, and the enhanced backward-SBS helps to increase the conversion efficiency.