Mechanism of Morphological Transition from Lamellar/Perforated Layer to Gyroid Phases

We investigated epitaxial relations of phase transitions between the lamellar (L), hexagonally perforated layers (HPL), and gyroid (G) morphologies in styrene-isoprene diblock copolymer (PSI) and polyisoprene (PI)/PSI blend using rheology and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques. In HPLlongrightarrowG transitions, six spot patterns of G phase were observed in two-dimensitional SAXS pattern. On the other hand, in direct L-longrightarrowG transition without appearance of HPL phase, the polydomain patterns of G phase were observed. From present study, it was understood that direct LlongrightarrowG transition of blend may be suppressed by high-energy barrier of transition and mismatches in domain orientation between epitaxially related lattice planes.