Abstract
We report the dynamic behavior of a sphere-forming poly(styrene)-block-poly(1,4-butadiene) (PS-PB) diblock copolymer comprising 20 vol % PB below the order-disorder transition temperature (T ODT = 153 °C) using dynamic mechanical spectroscopy (DMS) and X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS). A time-temperature transformation diagram was constructed by monitoring the elasticity of the sample as a function of time following rapid quenches of the disordered melt to various temperatures T < T ODT . Isothermal frequency spectra acquired prior to nucleation of the ordered BCC phase were time-temperature superposed, and the shift factors were fit using the Williams-Landel-Ferry (WLF) equation. For comparison, XPCS measurements were used to extract relaxation times from the supercooled liquid as a function of the quench temperature. Alignment of the temperature dependence of the XPCS-based relaxation times with that of the WLF shift factors in the range T = 125-140 °C indicates that both techniques probe the fluctuating mesomorphic micelle dynamics mediated by the relaxation modes of individual chains, including interparticle chain exchange. For deeper quench temperatures, T ODT - T ≥ 28 °C, departure of the XPCS time constant from WLF behavior is consistent with a jamming transition, analogous to that encountered in concentrated colloidal systems. We postulate that the dominant relaxation mode in the supercooled disordered liquid transitions from ergodic dynamics governed by chain exchange to a nonergodic regime dominated by local rearrangement of micellar particles at T ≈ T erg , where T erg denotes the ergodicity temperature.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1486-1491 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | ACS Macro Letters |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 18 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants NSF DMR-1104368, 1801993, and CHE-1608115. SAXS experiments reported in the Supporting Information were conducted at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Sector 5 (DuPont-Northwestern-Dow Collaborative Access Team, DND-CAT). DND-CAT is supported by E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., The Dow Chemical Company, and Northwestern University. Use of the APS, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory, was supported by the U.S. DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society.