Two New Triply Periodic Bicontinuous Network Structures for Molten Block Copolymers

The evolution of new triply periodic bicontinuous morphologies of molten diblock and triblock copolymers is theoretically studied in a mean-field level. The evolved mesophases are probed through characteristic peaks in the scattering functions and the real-space visualization. The ABC or AB copolymers at selected compositions and segregation levels exhibit holey network structures with Ia3¯d\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$Ia\bar 3d$$\end{document} and I4¯3d\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$I\bar 43d$$\end{document} symmetries, where the channels are wholly connected with tetrapod units. The curvatures, surface areas, and genera g’s of their dividing surfaces are estimated by matching them to proper model surfaces. The obtained surface properties of the newly developed networks are discussed in comparison with those of the known bicontinuous networks such as double gyroids and double diamonds.