Ordered patterns formed on polymer film through trapping and locking

Polymer films with ordered patterns have attracted considerable interest because of their potential applications. Herein, an innovative and facile strategy for patterned film formation by means of a trapping and locking process has been proposed. The results demonstrated that within seconds periodic structures with hexagonal packing could be obtained without the use of a template. Quite a few common polymers could be implemented in this novel fabrication method. Solvent evaporation and nonequilibrium convection have been determined to be responsible for the formation of ordered patterns that are fixed and locked on the film's surface through a simple solidification step. It is remarkable that the nonequilibrium convection and the polymer's architecture on the molecular scale could be trapped on a macroscopic scale. The straightforward strategy disclosed herein has general suggestions for the molecular structure transcription and the pattern formation techniques. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1701–1705