Mesophase formation in two-component cylindrical bottlebrush polymers.

When two types of side chains (A,B) are densely grafted to a (stiff) backbone and the resulting bottlebrush polymer is in a solution under poor solvent conditions, an incompatibility between A and B leads to microphase separation in the resulting cylindrical brush. The possible types of ordering are reminiscent of the ordering of block copolymers in cylindrical confinement. Starting from this analogy, Leibler's theory of microphase separation in block copolymer melts is generalized to derive a description of the system in the weak segregation limit. Also molecular dynamics simulation results of a corresponding coarse-grained bead-spring model are presented. Using side chain lengths up to N = 50 effective monomers, the ratio of the Lennard-Jones energy parameter between unlike monomers (ε(AB)) and monomers of the same kind (ε(AA) = ε(BB)) is varied. Various correlation functions are analyzed to study the conditions when (local) Janus-cylinder-type ordering and when (local) microphase separation in the direction along the cylinder axis occurs. Both the analytical theory and the simulations give evidence for short-range order due to a tendency toward microphase separation in the axial direction, with a wavelength proportional to the side chain gyration radius, irrespective of temperature and grafting density, for a wide range of these parameters.