STATIC WETTING BEHAVIOR OF DIBLOCK COPOLYMERS

Thin liquid films of ordered diblock copolymers deposited on a solid s ubstrate form a multilayer stacking parallel to the solid surface. A m ultilayer with a finite extend can be stable, metastable, or unstable, depending on the relative values of the surface energies of the vario us interfaces. The spreading parameter and chemical potential of a n-l ayer are derived, and used for classifying all possible situations. It is shown that only mono- and bilayers can be stable, and that non-wet ting multilayers are subjected to a long-time piling up instability, l eading in practice to the formation of characteristic ziggourat-like s tructures.