Trilayer crystalline lamellar morphology under confinement

A peculiar crystalline texture underconfinement, a trilayer syndiotactic polypropylene crystalline lamellar morphology in between vitrified polystyrene confinement in the polystyrene-b-syndiotactic polypropylene diblock copolymers, was analyzed. The microphase-separated lamellar microdomains and the formed sPP crystallinelamela were both oriented. The sPP chains in the microphase-separated microdomains indeed appear as highly stretched chains under thermodynamic consideration. This explains the occurrence of specific crystalline orientation with respect to the pS layer where the orientation might be initiated from the highly stretched sPP chains.