Effects of inhomogeneities of cross-links on a microphase separation of polymer mixtures

1994

We generalize de Gennes' theory of the microphase separation of cross-linked polymer mixtures to take into account the spatial fluctuations of the elasticity constant c, preventing the mixture from complete segregation. Within a mean-field analysis we found that the spatial fluctuations of c(r), which are assumed to obey the Poisson distribution, enlarge the size of the domains. The latter is obtained to be temperature dependent.