Origin of epitaxies between ordered phases of block copolymers

The origin of epitaxial relationships between different ordered phases of diblock copolymers is studied by examining the nucleation barrier of an arbitrarily oriented nucleus. It is found that the orientation-dependence of the nucleation barrier exhibits a very corrugated landscape with a few deep minima, corresponding to preferred crystallographic orientations of the nuclei. These minima are identified as the epitaxies between the ordered …