Synergistic effects of ion pairs on the dielectric properties of diblock copolymer melts

Abstract

We study the solvation of ion pairs in diblock copolymer melts. Our theory accounts for the size of the ions, the permanent dipole moment and the molecular polarizability of the monomers, the Kuhn length, the compressibility of the liquid mixtures, and the degrees of polymerization. We demonstrate that the electrostatic field near an ion pair causes marked, synergistic effects on the volume fractions of the two blocks and hence the dielectric function. In particular, we illustrate the oscillatory behavior of the dielectric function near an ion pair and the disparity of the dielectric functions between like and unlike charges. These results depend significantly on the chain length and Kuhn length of the diblock copolymers on the nanometer scale.