2005/07/22 by Subir K. Das, Sanjay Puri, Juergen Horbach +2
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Block Copolymer Self-Assembly #Material Dynamics and Properties #cond-mat.soft #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.72.061603
39 pages, 19 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.E
arxiv created 2005/07/22 · openalex publication_date 2005/12/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the diffusion-driven kinetics of phase separation of a symmetric binary mixture (AB), confined in a thin-film geometry between two parallel walls. We consider cases where (i) both walls preferentially attract the same component (A), and (ii) one wall attracts and the other wall attracts (with the same strength). We focus on the interplay of phase separation and wetting at the walls, which is referred to as surface-directed spinodal decomposition (SDSD). The formation of SDSD waves at the two surfaces, with wave vectors oriented perpendicular to them, often results in a metastable layered state (also referred to as "stratified morphology"). This state is reminiscent of the situation where the thin film is still in the one-phase region but the surfaces are completely wet, and hence coated with thick wetting layers. This metastable state decays by spinodal fluctuations and crosses over to an asymptotic growth regime characterized by the lateral coarsening of pancakelike domains. These pancakes may or may not be coated by precursors of wetting layers. We use Langevin simulations to study this crossover and the growth kinetics in the asymptotic coarsening regime.