## 2 Results and Discussion
### Structural Characterization of the PSt-I-PDMS and PSt-I-PDMS/DVB Conetworks
Figure 3: The SAXS curves of the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB network series. Figure 2: The DSC traces in the ranges of the glass transitions of PDMS (**A**) and PSt (**B**) for the PDMS and PSt homopolymers, and the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB networks. To visualize the nanophase-separated domain structure of the investigated contexts, phase imaging AFM measurements were carried out. As displayed in Figure 5, the AFM images show distinct nanophase separation between the PSt and PDMS phases in all conetworks. This is independent of the presence or absence of DVB as an additional low molecular weight crosslinker. This observation corroborates the DSC results on the existence of phase separation, and as well as the SAXS measurements, confirming that the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB conetworks have a nanophase-separated morphology with domain sizes in the \(\sim\)3-30 nm range in all studied cases. The good contrast of the AFM images enables us to estimate the average domain distances. As presented in Table 2, these values, obtained from the evaluation of the AFM images, are in the range of 9-16 nm, in good agreement with the \(d\)-spacing results obtained from the SAXS measurements. A closer look at the AFM images reveals four more important features in relation to the nanophasic structure of these conetworks: (1) The AFM images in Figure 5 convincingly \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Sample ID** & \(\mathbf{d}\)**-Spacing (nm)** & \(\mathbf{d}\) (nm)** \\  & **by SAXS** & **by AFM** \\ \hline S-4.7-48 & 16.7 & 16 \\ S-4.7-59 & 14.1 & 14 \\ S-4.7-67 & 12.8 & 13 \\ S-4.7-76 & 11.7 & 11 \\ S-4.7-84 & 11.7 & 12 \\ SD36-4.7-33 & 11.9 & 15 \\ SD36-4.7-44 & 11.0 & 15 \\ SD36-4.7-55 & 10.1 & 14 \\ SD36-4.7-65 & 9.5 & 13 \\ SD36-4.7-75 & 8.3 & 12 \\ SD5-4.7-32 & 11.0 & 11 \\ SD5-4.7-43 & 10.4 & 10 \\ SD5-4.7-54 & 9.5 & 9 \\ SD5-4.7-63 & 8.5 & 9 \\ SD5-4.7-75 & 7.7 & 10 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: The \(d\)-spacing by SAXS and the average domain distances (\(d\)) by AFM in the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDSM/DVB conetworks. Figure 4: The \(d\)-spacing values of the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB conetworks obtained by SAXS measurements as a function of the PDMS content. show a disordered nanophase separation in all these contexts, in good agreement with the SAXS curves in Figure 3. These curves have a single scattering maximum, indicating the absence of a higher order (long range order) of the separated nanophases. (2) Bicontinuous (cocontinuous) nanophase-separated morphology exists in all the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB conetworks, independent of the composition. (3) The average domain distances and sizes decrease with the increasing PDMS content of the conetworks, with the exception of the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS conetworks with the highest PDMS contents (samples S-4.7-84 and SD5-4.7-75), as shown in Figure 4. Similar findings, i.e., a decrease in d-spacing with increasing PDMS content, were recently reported for poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate)-\(l\)-PDMS conetworks [50]. (4) The presence of DVB as an additional low molecular weight crosslinker broadens the domain size distribution, and thus also the domain distance distribution, in the conetworks, confirming the broadening of the SAXS curves for the DVB-containing conetworks as shown in Figure 3. These findings clearly indicate that both the PSt-\(l\)-PDMS and PSt-\(l\)-PDMS/DVB conetworks have unique disordered bicontinuous (cocontinuous) nanophase-separated morphology with domain sizes in the range of \(\sim\)3-30 nm in a broad composition window of 30-80 wt% PDMS content.