Simulated Annealing Study of Self‐Assembly of Symmetric ABA Triblock Copolymers Confined in Cylindrical Nanopores

Abstract We report a simulated annealing study of the self‐assembly of symmetric lamella‐forming ABA triblock copolymers confined in cylindrical nanopores. We systematically examine the dependence of the self‐assembled morphologies and structural parameters on the degree of confinement and the strength of the surface preference. We find that the confined morphologies for the symmetric ABA triblocks with f A = 1/2 are similar to those for the symmetric or nearly symmetric AB diblock copolymers under the same confinement. We also find that different structural parameters can reflect different information. The predicted bridging fraction value for the bulk phase is in good agreement with previously established values, whereas the predicted values for the confined morphologies change with both the degree of confinement and the strength of the surface preference. We further explore the self‐assembling process by examining the morphology and various ensemble‐averaged thermodynamic quantities and structure parameters as a function of the reduced temperature. magnified image