Kinetic Pathways of Lamellae to Gyroid Transition in Weakly Segregated Diblock Copolymers

The kinetic pathways connecting the lamellar and gyroid phases in weakly segregated block copolymers are examined by combining the string method and the self-consistent mean-field theory for polymers. In particular, phase transition from arbitrarily oriented lamellae to gyroid is studied. The results reveal that initially the lamella will evolve into a metastable structure via a nucleation and growth mechanism, and then a secondary nucleation of the gyroid occurs in the metastable phase. The observed metastable structures include the perforated lamellae (PL), the O70 phase, and the tetragonally perforated layers (TPLabc). Nucleation and growth is the dominant mechanism, and prior phase transition passed by HPLabc, which is a long-lived metastable structure, has the minimal energy barrier.