Domain growth and wetting in polymer mixtures

Abstract

The influence of wetting forces exerted by an interface on the coarsening mechanism of two coexisting liquid phases is studied. Experiments show that in a polymer mixture undergoing spinodal decomposition domains of characteristic length l coarsen with time t according to the power law l\ensuremath{\sim}${\mathit{t}}^{3/2}$ in the direction parallel to a quartz interface. This is in contrast to the bulk behavior, where l\ensuremath{\sim}t. Although a preliminary argument suggests that wetting effects driven by van der Walls forces are responsible for the growth exponent, a proper hydrodynamic theory is not yet available.