Polymer bristles: a SANS study

We report the results of a SANS study into the structure of the adsorbed layers formed at the interface in a dilute perfluorodecalinin-water emulsion by five short chain diblock copolymers of oxyethylene (OE) and oxybutylene (OB). The results are discussed in the context of the Marques-Joanny-Leibler scaling description of block copolymer adsorption from selective solvents. The volume fraction profiles are best described by parabolic and, to a lesser extent, Gaussian functional forms. On increasing the temperature the buoy segments of one copolymer were found to contract toward the surface, giving rise to profiles that were more block-like in accordance with the mean-field predictions of Wijmans and Zhulina.