Nucleation and growth of monodisperse droplets in a binary-fluid system

Abstract

Mixtures of polyisoprene and poly(ethylene-propylene) have been studied using time-resolved elastic light scattering. For off-critical quenches just into the two-phase coexistence region, highly monodisperse spheres are observed, whose radii grow with a power law R(t)=${\mathit{R}}_{0}$${\mathit{t}}^{1/2}$. The monodispersity and growth law are explained as a heterogeneous nucleation process with a simple model equation for the growth of isolated spheres, and allow the study of the kinetics of domain growth for metastable thermodynamic processes in unprecedented detail.