2005/12/16 by A. J. Archer, Andrew J. Archer, Matthias Schmidt +3 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.73.011506
published as Phys. Rev. E 73, 011506 (2006) · 20 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for Phys. Rev. E
arxiv created 2005/12/16 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a density-functional study of a binary phase-separating mixture of soft core particles immersed in a random matrix of quenched soft core particles of larger size. This is a model for a binary polymer mixture immersed in a cross-linked rigid polymer network. Using the replica "trick" for quenched-annealed mixtures we derive an explicit density functional theory that treats the quenched species on the level of its one-body density distribution. The relation to a set of effective external potentials acting on the annealed components is discussed. We relate matrix-induced condensation in bulk to the behavior of the mixture around a single large particle. The interfacial properties of the binary mixture at a surface of the quenched matrix display a rich interplay between capillary condensation inside the bulk matrix and wetting phenomena at the matrix surface.