(2ch) Postdoc Candidate: Nanoscale Self-Assembly in Block Copolymer Blends

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate co-advised by Dr. Julie Albert and Dr. Hank Ashbaugh at Tulane University. I have ~4 years of experience in simulating polymers and understanding the nanoscale self-assembly/conformational behavior of (co)polymers. I have used the dissipative particle dynamics technique, Kremer-Grest bead-spring polymer model, and atomistic simulations on LAMMPS/GROMACS packages to study my systems. Here is a summary of my projects.

1) Order-Disorder Transition in Block Copolymer Topological Blends. In binary blends of diblock copolymers (linear/linear or linear/cyclic), I find that a polymer size mismatch between blend components is positively correlated with the segregation strength of the blend at the order-disorder transition (ODT) and explain the behavior in terms of mismatch in characteristic lengths of polymer domains in the disordered phase near ODT.

2) Polymer Topology Impacts the Stability of Vertical Lamellae. Moving to thin film regime by incorporating surface interactions, I show that a thin film of vertical lamellae formed by linear diblock copolymers is more stable compared to that formed by analogous cyclic chains and explain the discrepancy in terms of near-substrate chain conformations.

3) Order-Disorder Transition in Block-Random Copolymers. Here, I see that block-random copolymers have composition-dependent effective segregation strengths at the ODTs, unlike the diblock copolymers that have constant segregation strengths at the ODTs. I hypothesize that the difference stems from the differences in the interfacial tension of block-random copolymers from that of diblock copolymers.

4) Coil-globule Transition of Alkane Oligomers in Ethanol/Water Mixtures. I observe the collapse of alkane chains (C20, C30, C40) in water and ethanol/water mixtures and link the dramatic conformational collapse with hydrophobic effects and preferential adsorption of ethanol on the alkane chain.

Keeping my experience and research interests in mind, I want to work in a group that does computational simulations of complex macromolecules (e.g., charged polymers, associating polymers, non-linear polymers, etc.) with more realistic polymer models to understand the physics of the system.