0000000000335339
AUTHOR
Semjon Stepanow
Surface Effects on Block Copolymer Melts Above the Order-Disorder Transition: Linear Theory of Equilibrium Properties and the Kinetics of Surface-Induced Ordering
A phenomenological theory is developed for static and dynamic aspects ofsurface- induced ordering of symmetrical block copolymers taking fluctuation corrections into account, but, considering conditions where the bulk block copolymer melt is still disordered, and a lin- earized version of the resulting Ginzburg-Landau type equation suffices. Both the semi-infinite geometry and symmetrical films of thickness 2L are treated, applying the same boundary con- ditions as used previously for a treatment of wetting in polymer blends, assuming short range surface forces and a long Wavelength approximation. For the static order parameter profile in thin film geometry, We derive an oscillatory converg…
Copolymer Melts in Disordered Media
The symmetric AB block copolymer melt in a gel matrix with preferential adsorption of A monomers on the gel gives an example of a random-field system, which is described near the point of the microphase separation transition by the random field Landau-Brazovskii Hamiltonian. By using the technique of the 2-nd Legendre transform, the phase diagram of the system is calculated. We found that the preferential adsorption of the copolymer on the gel results in two effects: a) It decreases the temperature of the first order phase transition between disordered and ordered phase. b) There exists a region on the phase diagram at some small but finite value of the adsorption energy in which the replic…