Resulting intermediate/late-time structure: Elongated LC-rich and polymer-rich domains. View phi and S profiles. Similar domains coalesce and form elongated ones, which is plausible since this is a critical quench and we expect a bicontinuous phase to form. Although examining this system of size N=150 is better for our purposes than the N=100 system, this N=150 system may still be too small for reliable results at late times. Runs conducted on larger sizes under the same quenching conditions show and thus imply that we need to examine a much larger system to study domain growth kinetics in the late-time regime for such a quench.
Evolution of degree of PS and PO.
for PS (red): delta_phi(t) = phimax(t) - phimin(t)
for PO (blue): S(t) = Smax(t)
Plot indicates that PS is significant at t~10 and PO is significant at t~28. phi and S profiles reveal that these times (at which this plot indicates a high degree of PS and PO) represent when PS and PO begin to be significant. (That is, there is at least one or two small regions that have strongly phase separated or ordered.)
For this quench, PS is strong at t~10. PO, however, is not well-established until t~34, when the LCs in several LC-rich domains are highly ordered. At t=28 there are only a couple of small, higly ordered LC-rich droplets.
#1: "new" k1 -- from phi-based S(k).
R ~ t1/3 --> slower than t1/3.
Time at which LC-rich domains possess significant ordering coincides with time (approx.) at which domain growth slows down. System "locks" into bicontinuous phase formation (i.e., no individual droplets) by t=60.
#2: "new" k1 -- from phi-based S(k).
(Remember that these fits are meant as guides and no way imply scaling behavior.)
#3: "old" k1 -- from phi-based S(k).
R ~ t1/2 (possibly) --> t1/3
Since we really only consider "new" k1-based results, we make no comments on this t1/2 behavior.
We can compare these results to those of a different lattice size:
To view directly the results of those of a different lattice size:
Jump to the individual results of the quench with (phi0, T, N) of:
Other links:
www.chem.ucla.edu/~aml/research.html
Last updated August 1, 1999.