Spinodal decomposition in polymer mixtures

Abstract

We present the first numerical study of spinodal decomposition in polymer mixtures in three dimensions for the Flory--Huggins--de Gennes free energy, numerically integrating the time-evolution equations for the conserved order parameter. We study the time dependence of the domain size as well as the pair correlation function and structure factors for several quench temperatures. The results indicate that the growth law for the characteristic domain size is independent of the final quench temperature in contradiction with the recent experiments on model polymer systems. As well, it is shown that dynamical scaling is valid at sufficiently late times.