Porous films are attractive materials used in numerous fields, such as catalysis, templating, and separation. In previous examples of porous films prepared from block polymers, the pore size was usually determined by various factors, including mutual interaction between polymer chains, and was hard to precisely manipulate by modification of the block polymers. Herein, we report a novel method of preparing porous films from cyclic block copolymers with the pore size determined by the size of individual components. The incompatibility of the dangling polystyrene arms and cyclic polysiloxane backbones drove the assembly, which then led to the vertical alignment of the cyclic polysiloxane backbone to form porous films. Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations were also implemented to gain insight into the assembly process and the film microstructure at the molecular scale. A cyclic block copolymer allows feasible fabrication of porous films through designed interaction between its macromolecular arms. The morphology of pores is directly determined by the structural features of the block copolymer and can be easily tuned by modification of the length of its ring and arms.

中文翻译：

---

由环状嵌段共聚物制成的多孔薄膜

多孔膜是用于许多领域的有吸引力的材料，例如催化、模板和分离。在之前由嵌段聚合物制备的多孔膜的例子中，孔径通常由多种因素决定，包括聚合物链之间的相互作用，并且很难通过嵌段聚合物的改性来精确控制。在此，我们报告了一种从环状嵌段共聚物制备多孔薄膜的新方法，其孔径由单个组分的大小决定。悬垂的聚苯乙烯臂和环状聚硅氧烷主链的不相容性推动了组装，然后导致环状聚硅氧烷主链垂直排列以形成多孔膜。还实施了粗粒度分子动力学模拟，以在分子尺度上深入了解组装过程和薄膜微观结构。环状嵌段共聚物允许通过其大分子臂之间的设计相互作用来可行地制造多孔膜。孔的形态直接由嵌段共聚物的结构特征决定，并且可以通过修改其环和臂的长度来轻松调整。