Ordered pattern formation in electro-responsive polymer ionic liquid blends

Abstract

Formation of complex morphological patterns, through non-contact mechanisms, is one of the key techniques to design multifunctional systems from synthetic soft materials. These techniques have been harnessed to fabricate devices from soft matter for a variety of energy-efficient and biomimetic applications. Using modelling and simulation, here we develop an efficient mechanism, based on reaction-diffusion (RD) phenomena, that harnesses uniform electric field to create complex self-induced patterns in polymer ionic liquid (PIL) blends via phase separation. Our approach utilizes Poisson Boltzmann Nernst Planck (PBNP) equations to capture the long-range interactions of ionic liquid, both in the weak and strong segregation limits. We demonstrate that the ordered patterns in our PIL system are self-induced and robust and can be tuned by changing the direction of the electric field. Moreover, the calculations of the circularly averaged structure factor reveals that the electric field significantly increases the domain growth rate and their ordering remarkably. We believe this non-invasive technique is a significant step towards the development of ordered structures at microscopic length scales and can be utilized for in micro-scale fabrications from soft materials.