Related papers: Microphase separation in neutral homopolymer blend…
Whereas entropy can induce phase behavior that is as rich as seen in energetic systems, microphase separation remains a very rare phenomenon in entropic systems. In this paper, we present a density functional approach to study the…
We review our recent studies on selective solvation effects in phase separation in polar binary mixtures with a small amount of solutes. Such hydrophilic or hydrophobic particles are preferentially attracted to one of the solvent…
We present a generalized theory of microphase separation for charged-neutral diblock copolymer melt. Stability limit of the disordered phase for salt-free melt has been calculated using Random Phase Approximation (RPA) and self-consistent…
We model a melt of monodisperse side-chain liquid crystalline polymers as a melt of comb copolymers in which the side groups are rod-coil diblock copolymers. We consider both excluded volume and Maier-Saupe interactions. The first acts…
Microphase separation in random multiblock copolymers is studied with mean-field theory assuming that long blocks of a copolymer are strongly segregated, whereas short blocks are able to penetrate into "alien" domains and exchange between…
We develop a lattice-based Monte Carlo simulation method for charged mixtures capable of treating dielectric heterogeneities. Using this method, we study oil-water mixtures containing an antagonistic salt, with hydrophilic cations and…
Phase separation in charged systems may involve the replacement of critical points by microphase separated states, or charge-density-wave states. A density functional theory for highly charged colloids at low ionic strength is developed to…
Monte Carlo simulations in the grand canonical ensemble were used to obtain critical parameters and conditions leading to microphase separation for block copolymers with solvophilic and solvophobic segments. Solvent selectivity was…
Inspired by recent experiments, we present a phase-field model of microphase separation in an elastomer swollen with a solvent. The imbalance between the molecular scale of demixing and the mesoscopic scale beyond which elasticity operates…
The structural phase behavior of polymer brushes, single-component linear homopolymers grafted onto a planar substrate, is studied using the molecular Monte Carlo method in 3 dimensions. When simulation parameters of the system are set in…
When a liquid mixture is subjected to external electric fields, ionic screening leads to field gradients. We point out that if the mixture is initially in the homogeneous phase, this screening can bring about a robust phase-separation…
Phase transitions in polar binary mixtures can be drastically altered even by a small amount of salt. This is because the preferential solvation strongly depends on the ambient composition. Together with a summary of our research in this…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
Phase separation in salt-free symmetric mixtures of oppositely charged rodlike polyelectrolytes is studied using quasi-analytical calculations. Stability analyses for the isotropic-isotropic and the isotropic-nematic phase transitions in…
Polymers are increasingly used in the transport sector due to their many advantages; lightness, corrosion resistance, ease to process... However, most of them have limited mechanical properties. To improve these latter, one of the solutions…
DNA is now firmly established as a versatile and robust platform for achieving synthetic nanostructures. While the folding of single molecules into complex structures is routinely achieved through engineering basepair sequences, much less…
The phase separation of a simple binary mixture of incompatible linear polymers in solution is investigated using an extension of the sedimentation equilibrium method, whereby the osmotic pressure of the mixture is extracted from the…
Microcapsules allow for the controlled containment, transport, and release of cargoes ranging from pharmaceuticals to fragrances. Given the interest from a variety of industries in microcapsules and other core-shell structures, a multitude…
A coarse-graining strategy for dilute and semi-dilute solutions of interacting polymers, and of colloid polymer mixtures is briefly described. Monomer degrees of freedom are traced out to derive an effective, state dependent pair potential…
Phase separation in the Hubbard model is investigated with the dynamical cluster approximation. We find that it is present in the paramagnetic solution for values of filling smaller than one and at finite temperature when a positive…