There are some main areas of focus that can be looked at for the future of SVA to keep improving and being innovational in technology. Firstly, the chambers in which SVA takes place should continue to be improved on to allow precision of the process, as well as, reproducibility of the same structure on each attempt. The focus on these chambers and the components that make it precise have been a hypothetical thought process of what parameters affect reproducibility. It is imperative to continue to improve the amount of control over the annealing through being able to control all factors, such as humidity and temperature. The point of being meticulous in defining such parameters is for the possibility of multiple labs reproducing a certain compound to the same effect.
Next off, SVA with the improvement of the apparatus in which the process takes place, in situ studies, through X-ray and neutron scattering methods, can give more highly accurate images of the swollen and dried states of the BCP. Using methods such as also ellipsometry and interferometry can lead to discoveries about the thickness of the polymers in different states and nanostructure orientation, which will help to learn more about the equilibrium structure and the kinetics of developing a specified morphology. It is important here as well to be able to define small molecule additions to different parts of the block polymer at different points of the annealing and evaporation as to accurately be able to precisely know how the moieties will create certain orientations and directionality in structure. The final area moving forward is simply the implementation of the created block polymers in new intended applications and technology, beyond lab study and characterization of the method. It is important to go beyond creating the nanostructures and move into seeing the utility of the structures in an application, which will help reveal practical shortcomings of the created polymers and reveal areas of where to improve in parts of the structure, such as film integrity and attachment strength of the amorphous chains. Going beyond these simple surface imaging will allow us to realize and face some of the dangers and hindrances to functionality, such as the toxicity of working with organic solvents or the issues with dewetting the swollen state of the BCP.