High-Density Liquid-Crystalline Polymer Brushes Formed by Surface Segregation and Self-Assembly.

High-density polymer brushes on substrates exhibit unique properties and functions stemming from the extended conformations due to the surface constraint. To date, such chain organizations have been mostly attained by synthetic strategies of surface-initiated living polymerization. We show herein a new method to prepare a high-density polymer brush architecture using surface segregation and self-assembly of diblock copolymers containing a side-chain liquid-crystalline polymer (SCLCP). The surface segregation is attained from a film of an amorphous base polymer (polystyrene, PS) containing a minor amount of a SCLCP-PS diblock copolymer upon annealing above the glass-transition temperature. The polystyrene portion of the diblock copolymer can work as a laterally mobile anchor for the favorable self-assembly on the polystyrene base film.