| Abstract
| - Scanning force microscopy has been used to reveal the surface topology of the smectic B phase of (styrene−isoprene) diblock copolymers that have semifluorinated (SF) alkane mesogens attached as three-armmonodendrons to the isoprene backbone. On the largest length scales, the block copolymers microphaseseparate into well-known diblock copolymer microstructures and evidence of these can been seen in thesurface topology. However, there are periodic surface structures, so-called domes (with periodicities ofabout 18.5 nm), that arise solely from the arrangement of the SF mesogens at the polymer surface. Thesedomes are intrinsically independent of the much larger morphology of the block copolymer. Very long range(ca. micrometers) ordering of the domes is possible for lamellar block copolymer microstructures if thesurfaces are prepared by very slow cooling from the isotropic to the smectic B phase. We infer that thedomes arise because of spontaneous surface curvature resulting from mesogen crowding within themonodendrons.
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